LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



SOIL OF THE FARM 



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NEW YORK: 

ORANGE JUDD COMPAJSTY, 

751 BROADWAY. 
1883. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by the 

ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Cougrcss, at Washington. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



The improvement of the soil by drainage and irriga- 
tion, and by liming — the maintenance of its fertility by 
the operation of our tillage implements — its exhaustion 
by cropping, and its restoration by manuring — are the 
proper subjects of these pages. The resources of the 
farmer, in the economy of home manures and in the use 
of manufactured and imported fertilizers, are considered 
in detail. 

Fertility of course depends not only on the soil but on 
the climate. And it is on the fitness of the circumstances 
in both these particulars that the luxuriance and pros- 
perity of plant growth rest. The principles on which 
fertility is dependent may be the same in all climates. 
The capability of obtaining from soil and air the building 
material of the growing plant is everywhere its limit, 
but it is the climate alone which determines the vegeta- 
tion in which the fertility is exhibited. 

Messrs. J. B'. Lawes, J. C. Morton, John Scott, and 
George Thurber, so eminent in tlieir fields of labor, are 
the writers of these valuable pages. 

May, 1883. 



(3) 



CONTENTS 



PAcn 
Chapter L 

Origin and Formation of Soils 5-10 

Chapter IL 
Physical Proi)erties of Soils 11-15 

Chapter m. 
ComjKJsition and Fertility of Soils. 16-27 

Chapter IV. 
Soil Improvement — Land Drainage and Irrigation 28-41 

Chapter V. 
Claying, liming, Marling, Burning 42-47 

Chapter VI. 
Tillage Operations 48-61 

Chapter VII. 
Home Manures 62-82 

Chapter VHI. 
Auxiliary Manures 83-97 

Chapter IX. 
The Loss of Nitrogen __- 99-107 



<4) 



THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 



CHAPTEE I. 

ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF SOILS. 

Soil and Subsoil— Conversion of Rock into Soil—Processes of Weather- 
ing and Denudation — Alluvium — Boulder Clay — Vegetable Mould — 
Peat 

Soil and Subsoil.— The soil is that part of the ground 
which can be tilled and in which plants grow. It is 
merely the upper stratum of decayed rock mixed with 
vegetable and animal remains. It varies in depth from 
less than thrce inches to more than a foot. 

Immediately below the soil is the subsoil, which rests 
upon underlying rock. The subsoil is generally more 
compact than the soil, being less stirred in cultivation; 
and it is frequently of a different color. The ju-incipal 
difference, however, between the two consists in the greater 
amount of the organic matter in the latter, which is 
generally present to some extent in both. 

The main distinction between the soil, the subsoil, and 
the underlying rock consists in this, that soil is rotted 
subsoil and subsoil is rotting rock. A vertical section of 
the soil will generally show several gradations. The 
whole may be made up of five different layers. There 
will be: (1) A grass layer; (2) A vegetable soil layer; (3) 
(5) 



6 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

Soil or rotted subsoil; (4) Subsoil or rotting rock; (5) 
Underlying rock. 

Conversion of Rock into Soil, — Various forces are 
active in this work. (1.) The atmosphere acts chemically 
upon rock; its action consisting chiefly in the oxidation 
of those minerals which can contain more oxygen^ and in 
the production of carbonates and bicarbonates, whose 
solubility still further aids disintegration. (2.) Changes 
of temperature have a loosening influence upon rocks, 
by causing alternate expansion and contraction. We see 
its effects in the way in which, after a strong frost, the 
soil of fields and the material of roads is found to be 
loosened and pulverized. (3.) Eain acts both chemically 
and mechanically in the same direction. Its chemical ac- 
tion arises chiefly from the solvent power of the carbonic 
acid which it absorbs from the atmosphere, and which acts 
especially upon rocks containing lime; partly, also, from 
its oxygen combining with substances not yet fully oxi- 
dized. Its mechanical action appears in the way in which 
it washes off the finer particles of disintegrated rock or 
soil from liigher to lower ground. (4. ) Plants promote 
the process of converting rocks into soil, both in their 
growth and in their decay. Growing plants keep the 
mineral matters, amidst which they grow, moist, and 
enable water to penetrate and rot them; while their roots 
exercise a double effect, inserting themselves into joints 
and crevices, and thereby causing fragments to be de- 
tached, dissolving also and then absorbing minute por- 
tions of the rock fragments. The action of decaying 
vegetable matter is still greater. It absorbs much moist- 
ure and keeps all bodies around it damp; it is constantly 
yielding carbonic acid, which, being absorbed by the ram 
water, is carried down through the soil and then acts 
powerfully upon mineral matters below. Certain organic 
acids are also produced during decay, and these and 



ORIGII?^ AIS'D FORMATIOiq" OF SOILS. 7 

their combinations with potash, soda, and ammonia, act 
energetically on carbonate of lime and ou the oxides of 
iron, and play a highly important part in the dismtegra- 
tion of various kinds of rocks. (5. ) The burrowing of 
earth-worms and other earth-dwelling creatures brings 
fresh particles to the surface, and admits the passage of 
air and water to the subsoil. 

According to Darwin the solid rocks disintegrate even 
in countries where it seldom rains and where there is no 
frost. And in conformity with the views lately advanced 
by De Konnick, such disintegrations may be attributed 
to the carbonic and nitric acids, together with the nitrates 
of ammonia, which are dissolved in the dew. 

Rocks of various hardness weather at different rates. 
Many of the slates and shales disintegrate rapidly. So do 
granite and gneiss. Purely calcareous rocks, however, 
weather quickest, the lime being dissolved out of them by 
the rain-water. Over some limestone rocks this gives 
rise to a lime-^^pan" in the subsoil. The dissolved lime 
is carried down and often forms, with other materials 
present, a layer as of concrete, the lime acting as a 
cement. The same power which dissolves the carbonate 
of lime in solid rocks, dissolves also that which may be 
diffused through the soil. In chalk countries the rapid- 
ity with which the lime wastes is shown by the residuum 
of flints left on the surface; because though even these 
flints gradually disintegrate, they do not decay so fast as 
the chalk. In spite of much stone-picking, these flints 
continue to make their appearance. 

The rocks which weather with most ease and rapidity 
do not always exhibit most soil: often the reverse. A 
pure limestone would exhibit hardly any weathered band 
or soil, because the carbonic acid of the rain would al- 
most at once dissolve and remove the particles it acts 
upon. Even in the case of igneous rocks, the composi- 
tion may be such that those which weather most rapidly 



8 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

may not show the greatest depth of weathered band upon 
the surface, owing to the removal of the particles as soon 
as disintegrated. 

Denudation. — The same weather action which forms 
soil is also Avasting or carrying them away. Soil is al- 
ways travelling towards the sea. It is deepest in the val- 
ley and thinnest on the brow of the hill. The land 
movement consists for the most part of the mere sweep- 
ing downwards of its component particles by ram or 
thawing snow, or by surface drainage. The continued 
rainfall not only dissolves out of the soil a great deal of 
the soluble matter, but must eventually remove much of 
the soil itself. Indeed, our brooks and rivers, after 
heavy long-continued rain, show us by the yellow muddy 
color of their waters that they are carrying a vast quan- 
tity of sediment to the sea. All this sediment has come 
from the most easily washed off parts of the surface soil, 
upon which the rains have persistently been falling. It 
is, however, the fact that the soil, notwithstanding, re- 
mains nearly constant in quantity. Though, therefore, 
it is continually washed away, it is augmented from other 
causes, just as much on an average as it is diminished by 
denudation; and this augmentation evidently can pro- 
ceed from nothing but the constant and slow disintegra- 
tion of the underlying rock. If there were not a con- 
comitant decomposition of the subsoils, converting them 
into surface soils, the solid rock would everywhere appear 
naked at the surface, as is the case in mountainous dis- 
tricts where the wasting away of the soil is more rapid 
than the rate of decomposition of the underlying rocks. 
Even the tillage and plowing of arable lands plays into 
the hands of the robbing weather action, by enabling it to 
act more powerfully on the soil, and to waste it in a 
higher degree than it could have done had it been protect- 
ed by natural vegetation or by the grass of pasture land. 



ORIGIN^ Al^J) FORMATIOK OF SOILS. 9 

AllUTium. — If no denudation took place, the soil of 
every locality would be simply the decayed upper surface 
of the rocks underneath it. But, in proportion to the 
slope of the ground and the quantity of rain, the soil is 
moved from higher to lower levels, so that m many cases 
a good soil comes to lie upon rocks, which of themselves 
would only produce a poor soil. During every fall of 
rain, transportation of soil goes on, and the thicker soils 
of the valley are partially formed in this way. 

The running water bears along the transported matter 
and leaves it when the force of the current diminishes ; 
the finer portion being carried further ; the extremely 
comminuted material moving as long as the current 
moves at all. When a river reaches a level tract on 
which its motion is slow, and over part of which it can 
flow in flood, all the suspended material, consisting of 
fine sand and mud, is deposited and constitutes the 
alluvium, or new land formed by such dei:)osits at the 
river mouth. 

Marine alluvial soils have a similar origin. The rising 
tide sweeps away the fine material from every exposed 
bank or cliff, and becomes loaded with mud and extremely 
fine sand, which, ^^ it stagnates at high water, it deposits 
in a thin layer on the surface of the flats. This layer, 
which varies in thickness, is thus coarser and thicker at 
the outer edge of the flats than near the shore. 

From the same cause, the earlier deposit of the coarse 
sediment, the lower strata of the layer are arenaceous, 
while the upper surface is fine and slimy. Thus the flats 
continue to grow until they reach such a height that they 
can be overflowed only by the high spring tides ; and they 
at length become gradually covered with the coarse 
grasses and sedges which grow in such places. 

Drift or Boulder Clay.— In addition to river and 
marine action, it must be borne m mmd, however, that 



10 THE SOIL or THE FARM. 

the abrading agencies of an ancient glacial period have 
done a great deal towards commingling the detritus of 
the different geological formations, producing wide- 
spread ^' drift" soils of various composition. This de- 
tritus is far from being uniformly spread over the island. 
In some districts it is absent, while in others it forms a 
thick mantle obscuring all the hard rocks. No richer 
source of soil could possibly be mentioned, for our drift- 
beds have been all formed by the breaking up of rocks of 
different geological formations, and of various chemical 
constituents. 

It is no doubt true that in regions where there is a 
thick cover of ^ • drift " the soil has little or no relation to 
the solid rocks below the drift, but this *' drift " is there 
really the surface '^ rock," in the agricultural sense of 
that word ; so that there is no exception here to the rule 
that, soil is rotted subsoil and subsoil is rotting rock. 

Vegetable Mould is continually forming wherever 
plants grow. It is the foundation, and often the entire 
source, of the organic portion of the soil. Where vege- 
tation is scanty, or where the produce of the soil is re- 
moved by man or animals, it occurs sparingly. Deep 
beds of this mould are, however, nfet with in forests 
under trees, and on dry land generally, wherever vege- 
tation is rank and neglected. 

Peat, like vegetable mould, is produced by the slow 
decay of plants and their remains in the midst of water. 
The peat may arise simply from the accumulation of 
neglected vegetable matter in moist situations. Where 
successive generations of plants have grown and decayed 
upon a soil, the vegetable matter increases m such a pro- 
portion that the soil approaches to a peat in its nature ; 
and if in a situation where it can receive water from a 
higher district, it soon becomes spongy, and unfitted for 
the growth of any but coarse aquatic plants. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OP SOILS. 11 

Another mode in wliicli peat is formed is by tlie gradual 
accumulation and decomposition of aquatic plants in 
shallow lakes and stagnant pools. This kind of peat is of 
a more loose and spongy quality. What has greatly con- 
tributed to its formation is the destruction of ancient 
forests, either by the operation of some natural cause, or 
by the hand of man. When water gets collected or choked 
up, as in a morass for instance, many plants contrive to 
grow in it, and by their decay form peat — especially the 
'' bog moss," which, while it grows above, decays beneath. 



CHAPTER XL 
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 

Texture— Absorbent Power— Temperature. 

Soils differ greatly, not only in chemical constitution, 
but also in physical characteristics; and, in our estimate 
of them, we must be guided by their climatic and physical 
relations no less than by the results of chemical analysis. 
It is comparatively easy to adapt the plant or crop to the 
nature of the soil when once we know what mineral in- 
gredients are required by the one and afforded by the 
other; but it demands close observation and a more dil- 
igent application of means to bring the physical or 
mechanical qualities of the soil into the state most con- 
ducive to the growth of its natural products. The nec- 
essary influence of mechanical operations here becomes 
obvious, for the circumstances of air, moisture, and 
warmth, which are essential to the development of the 
changes which occur in the process of germination, are 
but slightly influenced by the chemical properties of the 



12 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

soil, being all dependent upon its mechanical condition. 
And this influence is not confined to the first stage of 
yegetation, for at no period of gTOwth or maturity can 
the plants avail themselves of their full amount of food 
unless the state of the soil admits of the free passage of 
air and water, and favors the extension of the roots in 
all directions. 

Texture of Soils. — In this respect the soil may vary 
from coarse pebbles or loose sand to the finest and most 
tenaceous clay. In general, however, those soils are best 
adapted for agriculture which consist of mixtures of sand 
with a moderate quantity of clay, and a little vegetable 
matter. When sand or other coarse material predommates, 
the soil is light and easy to till, and will grow all the 
crops suitable to the district; but it is deficient in the 
power of retaining water and the soluble and volatile 
parts of manure. When clay is in excess, the soil is 
heavy to till, and will probably grow fewer crops; it is 
too retentive of water, is not easily warmed, does not ad- 
mit of access of air, and consequently does not facilitate 
those chemical changes in the soil and manure placed 
in it, which are necessary to prepare proper food for 
plants. 

Clay lands, whether in the dry or wet state, are the 
most difficult to work; sandy soils and those containing 
much organic matter being the most easy. When land is 
worked in a wet state, we have not only to overcome the 
cohesiveness of the particles among themselves, but at 
the same time their attachment or adhesion also to the 
agricultural implements employed. In a wet climate, 
therefore, the working days for tillage will be fewer than 
in a dry one, and proportionately more so on clay soils 
than on light soils. Less work can also be done in a day 
with the same power on clay and heavy soils than on 
sandy or light ones. Oh clay lands, a pair of horses can 



PHYSICAL PEOPERTIES OF SOILS. 13 

seldom do the tillage of sixty acres per annum; but on 
light soils a pair of horses may overtake the work of 
eighty acres and upwards, except under very laborious 
rotations of cropping. 

The terms light and heavy, as commonly applied to 
soils, do not refer to their actual weight, but to their 
tenacity, and the degree of resistance they will offer to 
the plow or other implements. Sandy soils are, m 
the farmer's sense of the word, the lightest of all soils, 
because they are easiest to work, while in actual weight 
they are the heaviest soils known. Clay, also, which we 
call a heavy soil, because stiff and unyielding to the 
plow, is comparatively a light soil in actual weight. 
Peat soils are light in both senses of the word, having 
little actual weight, and being loose or porous. 

Absorbent and Reteative Powers of Soils. — If there 
were no other difference in soils than that of texture, that 
which contained the greatest amount of finely divided 
matter would possess an advantage over the soils with 
coarser parts. One cause of this superiority consists in 
the greater absorptive and retentive power which finely 
divided matter possesses, due mainly, in all probability, 
to the immensely greater quantity of internal superfices 
in a given bulk or weight of the more finely divided soil. 
The ammonia floating in the atmosphere is continually 
being washed into soils, in solution with rain-water. 
Clay, oxide of iron, and the organic matter contained in 
the soils, perform the important function of absorj)tion. 
This property of clay may be one of the circumstances 
^ which render clay soils better for wheat than sandy soils. 
But, although clay contains a larger porportion of this 
absorbed substance than sands or loams, it cannot be 
doubted that these must receive from rains the same 
amount of fertilizing matter as the clay; only they have 
less ability for retaining it, or at least for storing it up. 



14 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

The soil, however, is not a mere sieve through which 
any matter in solution can pass freely. It has a power of 
retaining, as in a filter, many saline and other substances 
that may be present in the water permeating it. The 
experiments of Way, Voelcker, and others have shown 
that when surface waters charged with the products of 
vegetable decay are brought mto contact with argillaceous 
sediment, they part to some extent with their potash, 
ammonia, silica, phosphoric acid, and organic matter, 
which remain m combination with the soil; Avhile, under 
ordinary conditions at least, neither nitrates, soda, lime, 
magnesia, sulphuric acid, nor chlorine are retained. The 
phosphates are probably retained in combination with 
alumina or peroxide of iron, and the silica and organic 
matters also enter into more or less insoluble combina- 
tions. It follows from these reactions that drainage- 
waters, especially from clay soils in a good state of pul- 
verization, are found to carry off nitrates, sulphates, 
chlorides, or carbonates of soda, lime, and magnesia. In 
light and sandy soils the power of retaining nutritive 
substances is less than in the case of heavier soils, or than 
soils having much vegetable matter. Were it not for this 
power, the soluble substances present in the soil, whether 
naturally or applied in manures, would often be speedily 
washed out of it; and tillage and draining would much 
more rapidly impoverish the land than they do, by allow- 
ing its soluble constituents to be carried off by water. 

The power of soils to absorb and retain moisture is in 
direct ratio not only to the quantity of organic matter in 
the soil, but also to the fineness of the particles of the soil. 
Hence it becomes important, in a practical point of view, 
to secure a proper degree of fineness in the particles of 
a soil if it is to withstand drouth. During dry weather 
plants require a soil which is both absorptive and re- 
tentive; and that soil which is capable of seizing atmos- 
pheric moisture, and holding it when the atmosphere is 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 15 

heated, is one of the best constituted soils. But " stiff 
cLt-js, which take up the greatest quantity of water, when 
it is poured upon them in a fluid form, are not the soils 
which absorb most moisture from the atmosphere 
in dry weather; they cake and present only a small sur- 
face to the air, and the vegetation on them is generally 
burnt up almost as readily as on sands. The soils that 
are most efficient in supplying the plant with water by 
atmospheric absorption, are those in which there is a 
due mixture of sand, finely divided clay, and carbonate of 
lime, with some animal or vegetable matter, and which 
are so loose and light as to be freely permeable to the 
atmosphere. With respect to this quality, carbonate of 
lime and vegetable matter are of great use in soils; they 
give absorbent power to the soil without likewise giving 
it tenacity; sand, which also destroys tenacity, on the 
contrary, gives it little absorbent power." In accordance, 
then, with these observations, we find that the materials 
which are most influential in soils may be arranged in 
the following order, when their relations to moisture 
are considered: — organic matter, marls, clays, loams, and 
sands. 

The Temperature of a soil depends very much upon 
its humidity. Dry land absorbs heat more quickly and 
loses it more slowly than that which is wet, and thus the 
summer temperature of our undrained districts will be 
lower than if they had been drained. 

The temperature of drained land is in summer occa- 
sionally three degrees Fah. above that of undrained land. 
The greatest difference between the temperature of the soil 
and the air occurs in spring, the soil acquiring the proper 
temperature for the coming vegetation rather slowly, in 
consequence of the evaporation required in order to dry 
it sufficiently. In the autumn, it seems to have acquired 
a stock of heat which is sufficient for some time without 



16 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

exhaustion, while at the same time it operates favorably 
in sustaining the proper temperature for the ripening of 
later fruits and other crops. The surface heat is often 
preserved, too, in the autumn by rain; and in the spring 
rains aid in warming the soil. Emmon mentions an in- 
stance of rain whose temperature was fifty-four degrees 
falling when the earth was fourty-nine degrees, and the 
surface was raised soon after to fifty-one degrees. Dark- 
colored soils absorb heat more rapidly than light-colored 
ones. 



CHAPTER III. 

COMPOSITION AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 

Organic and Inorganic Constituents — Classification — Composition and 
Texture— Barrenness— Fertility, natural and acquired— Exhaustion 
and Restoration of Fertility. 

Soil consists of an organic and an inorganic or mineral 
part ; and we have seen that the former is derived from the 
roots and stems of decayed plants and from the manure 
and remains of animals, and the latter from the waste of 
the rocks forming the earth's crust. 

Organic matter is most deficient in sandy soils and 
poor clays. Even in fertile soils, however, it often occurs 
but sparingly. In one sample of fertile mould, the amount 
of organic matter was ascertained to be only 1.76 per 
cent. ; in the famous black soil of Eussia it varies from 
five to twelve per cent. In leaf-mould the amount is 
much greater, and in peat the carbon alone sometimes ex- 
ceeds sixty per cent. The carbon in the soil tends gradu- 
ally to oxidize and to disappear, except where water ac- 



COMPOSITION^ AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 17 

cumulates and the climate is cool ; so that if we exclude 
living roots and root fibres, there is, even in the oldest 
pasture-land, no great quantity of organic matter, not- 
withstanding the continued decay of the roots and under- 
ground stems of plants and the occasional addition of 
manure. 

The Inorganic or l^Iineral portion of the soil consists 
of the same substances as the inorganic part of plants, 
with the addition of alumina. The mineral constituents 
of soils include the following substances: — 

Silica. Potash. 

Alumina. Soda. 

Calcic carbonate. Ferric oxide. 

Phosphoric acid. Magnesia. 

Sulphuric acid. Chlorine. 

These constituents exist in very different proportions 
in different soils. The first three — sand, clay, lime — 
represent more than ninety per cent, of the substance of 
most soils; and, as one or other of them prevails, the soil 
is characterized as calcareous, clayey, or sandy. The most 
active constituents of the soil, however, phosphoric acid 
and the alkalies, occur in very small quantities, as do the 
other and less important constituents — magnesia, chlo- 
rine, and sulphuric acid. 

Silica exists in very different proportions in different 
soils, but chiefly in an insoluble form, and that most 
largely in the poorest sands, fertile soils alone containing 
it in a soluble form. Sandy soils contain eighty per 
cent, and upwards of silica : even stiff clay soils from 
sixty to seventy per cent., and calcareous or lime soils and 
marls from twenty to thirty per cent. In sandy soil there 
is an abundance of silica, but it is not available. In clay 
it is also abundant, but it is the quantity of it which is 
soluble that determines its value as contributing to the 
food or life of the plant. 

It is in the form of soluble silicates that silica does its 



18 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. * 

work as plant food. Its use in the form of sand consists 
in its miiuence on the texture of the sand. 

Alumina is a valuable constituent of soils as giving sub- 
stance and stiffness of texture to the soil. In combina- 
tion with silica (as the silicate of alumina) it is clay. It 
is contained in greatest proportion m the stiffer clays, but 
it rarely exceeds ten per cent, of the whole mineral con- 
stituents of a soil. Clay soils contain on an average from 
six to ten per cent, of alumina. In sandy soils it varies 
from one to four per cent. ; and in marls, calcareous soils, 
and vegetable moulds from one to six per cent. 

The larger the percentage of alumina m the soil, the 
more difficult is its cultivation — the adhesive character of 
the earth offering a stubborn resistance to the passage of 
the plow and other implements through it. 

Calcic carbonate, a combination of lime and carbonic 
acid, varies from about ninety per cent, in some marls 
and limestone soils to mere traces in some other soils. 
Clays and loams generally contain one to three per 
cent, of this substance. Less than one per cent, may 
be regarded as a defective proportion. Where a soil is 
deficient in lime, the lime present exists in it mostly in 
combination with the organic acids, and is more abun- 
dant in the surface than in the subsoil. 

Phosphoric acid is contained in all good soils, but only 
in small quantities, when compared with their other con- 
stituents. It exists in combination with lime, iron, and 
alumina. Phosphate of lime is its most common combi- 
nation. It is generally found in very minute quantities, 
but in clays its percentage is sometimes more than one 
per cent. In general, even very fertile land contains less 
than this proportion, and the average amount is probably 
about a half per cent. The supply of phosphates is 
shown by analysis to be derived in the main from the 
rocks themselves. The fossiliferous rocks yield it most 
abundantly. 



COMPOSITION AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 19 

Potash, an element of felspar, is present in large quan- 
tity in soils derived from the primitive and igneous rocks. 
It varies in different soils from the merest trace to one or 
two per cent. Sandy and peaty soils and marls are in 
general deficient in this alkali. Soils ricli in alumina are, 
with some exceptions, generally rich in potash. It exists 
in the soil in combination witli silica, forming a substance 
which is to some extent soluble in water. Soda is a less 
important constituent in soil than potash, and, unless 
near the coast, is present in even smaller quantity. 

Of the other ingredients which have been named, ferric 
oxide, invariably found in soils, is sometimes found in 
the subsoil in injurious forms. The ferric orper-oxide, 
better known as the red rust of iron, is its most favorable 
condition in the soil. In its less perfectly oxidized form, 
soluble in vegetable acids, it exists in undrained veg- 
etable soils, and, on drainage, entering the pipes with 
the water which is being drawn off, it forms, on per-oxi- 
dation in the presence of the air, an insoluble ferric de- 
posit, which is sometimes in quantity sufficient to choke 
the pipes. Magnesia is found in all fertile soils, in pro- 
portions, however, often amounting to a mere trace. 
Sulphuric acid and chlorine occur very sparingly in most 
soils. 

Classifications of Soils. — In talking of soils, a precise 
nomenclature should be adhered to in preference to local 
terms. Otherwise men in different districts will often fail 
to understand what particular kind of soil is alluded to. 
The most common classification of soils is based on their 
composition; and the names applied to them take after 
their predominant ingredients. Thus where sand, clay, 
lime, or organic matter predominates in a soil, it is sandy, 
clayey, calcareous, or vegetable, as the case may be. A 
mixture of sand and clay is called loam. If it is needful 
to be more specific, loams, etc., are designated by the pre- 



20 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

dominance in tliem either of sand, clay, or lime, as sand 
loams, or clay loams, etc. Soils are also popularly desig- 
nated from their texture as light or heavy, porous or im- 
jiervious; from their relations to heat and moisture as 
wet or dry, cold or warm; and from their measure of fer- 
tility as rich or poor, fertile or infertile, etc. Again, the 
class of crops respectively best adapted to each, has led to 
clays being spoken of as wheat and bean soils, and friable 
soils as barley and turnip land. 

The Composition of the Soil is one of the conditions 
on which the fertility of a soil depends. 

On this composition depends its supply of plant food. 
Fertility does not altogether depend on the quantity of 
organic matter present in the soil. There are some allu- 
vial soils nearly destitute of organic matter, and yet of 
almost inexhaustible fertility; and there are peaty soils 
which are rich in organic matter, yet very barren. The 
organic matter of the soil, however, is of great value. 
It is constantly yielding by its decay matters which 
nourish the organic parts of the plant, and it is setting 
free, little by little, the earthy matters of its own ashes. 
It is also, by its decay, inducing chemical changes which 
tend to set free other matters held in combination in the 
particles of the soil. It renders clay soil more friable, 
and sandy soils more retentive of substances in solution; 
and these are certainly great uses. 

The mineral matter of the soil is of equal importance. 
All naturally fertile soils contain a notable quantity of 
each of the different mineral substances which have been 
named, which are indeed essential to fertility, for a soil 
destitute of any one of them is more or less barren: fer- 
tility being limited by the minimum of any one necessary 
ingredient, even though the maximum of the others be 
present. 

However fertile a soil may be, not more perhaps than 



COMPOSITION AJ^D FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 21 

one per cent, of its substance is, at any moment, in a fit 
condition for nourishing our crops. The great bulk of 
it is unavailable to the plant at any one time, and is only 
slowly liberated by the action of air, of moisture, of heat, 
and of manure. It is on the rate at which this libera- 
tion of plant food takes place that the natural fertility of 
the soil may be said, in a great measure, to depend. 

A soil may contain abundance of phosphoric acid, 
potash, magnesia, etc., and yet be infertile, if these exist 
in the soil only as apatite, felspar, and serpentine, be- 
cause these minerals do not yield their elements to the 
solvent agencies of the soil or plant rapidly enough to 
furnish the required amount of plant food. Nitrates and 
ammonia salts, which are the natural sources of nitrogen 
to crops, never need be present in the soil in more than 
the minutest proportion. It is only requisite that they 
be gathered or generated there as rapidly as crops require 
them. The process of nitrification, whereby inert or un- 
assimilable nitrogen existing in the soil is converted into 
nitric acid, thus becomes of the utmost agricultural 
importance. 

On the other hand, the nutritive substances which are 
yielded naturally by the soil may be in a state so soluble 
as to be very liable to waste before they can be taken up 
by the roots of the growing plants. 

Everyday experience proves that soils differ greatly in 
these respects. Nearly all the materials which go to 
make up the structure of the earth's crust are such as to 
afford, by their decomposition, a soil fit for the support 
of vegetable life ; but all rock-formations do not furnish 
equal amounts of these materials ; and, while all soils 
have considerable power of retaining in their pores even 
the most soluble substances, some part with them too 
readily, and others retain them too firmly, or only part 
with them when exposed to various preparatory processes. 



22 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

These differences are the result of geological formation, 
as well as of chemical composition. 

A proper mechanical texture in soils is also essential 
to fertility. On the texture of a soil depends, not only 
its suitableness for the growth of different crops, but like- 
wise the rapidity of their growth. It is this also which 
regulates, to a great extent, the soil's power of absorbing 
and retaining heat, moisture, and manure. To be fertile, 
the soil must be firm enough to afford a proper degree of 
support to the plants which grow in it, and yet loose 
enough to allow the delicate fibres of the rootlets to ex- 
tend themselves in all directions. It must be of such a 
texture as to allow the free access of air, without which 
plants cannot live ; and it must be close enough to retain, 
for a considerable time, the water which falls on it, and 
at the same time, porous enough to allow the excess to 
drain away. In this respect, the nature of the subsoil 
and the depth of the surface soil are both of them im- 
portant. When a soil rests immediately upon a bed of 
rock or gravel, it will be naturally drier than where the 
subsoil is of clay and marl. On the other hand, a clay 
subsoil may be of material advantage to a sandy soil, by 
enabling it to retain moisture longer in dry weather. 

For the fertility of a soil dej^ends not only on its com- 
position — not only its wealth as a full storehouse of what 
the growing plant needs as food, but on its efficiency as 
a laboratory in which the materials thus required are 
prepared for use. And it is in its relations to the water 
which is the great carrier to and fro of the ingredients 
which are at once the chemicals in this laboratory and 
the food in this storehouse that the efficiency of a soil in 
both these characters, and therefore its fertility, very 
materially depends. Unless there be a sufficiently free 
passage for the rain-water throughout the substance of 
the soil, neither will the food of plants be properly pre- 



COMPOSITION^ AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 23 

pared, nor the stationary roots of plants be fed. It is in 
the great change thus mtroduced. into water-logged soils 
by land drainage that its extraordinary power as a fer- 
tilizing agency depends, to which reference is made in 
another chapter. 

The relative fertility of a soil is further dependent on 
the climate wherein it lies. Disregard of local conditions 
as to rainfall, temperature, aspect, height above the sea, 
and other necessary circumstances, may lead to very erro- 
neous estimates of the value of soils. They may be the 
same in composition and texture, and yet differ greatly 
in value. Nothing is more certain than that the amount 
of rain, and the season of its descent, determine in a 
great degree the nature of the husbandry of the place, 
and the value of its soil for agriculture. The temperature 
of the air in any particular locality has an important 
bearing upon the actual productiveness of the soil, what- 
ever may be its composition and texture, and however 
propitiously the rain may fall upon it. Other things 
being equal, we should expect that sheltered situations, 
with a good southern aspect, would be those in which we 
should find the capability of any given soil best exhibited. 
But though soil and rain and duly-tempered warmth 
favor us, these and many other considerations besides, 
may fail to determine, in every case, whether this or that 
plant may be grown within particular limits. That also 
depends on the presence or absence of its proper food, 
and it is here that art is available for meeting the defects 
of nature. 

Causes of Barrenness. — They are of course the converse 
of those of fertility. The soil may be empty, considered 
as a storehouse of plant food, or locked up in stagnant 
water, and thus incapable as a laboratory in which that 
food is prepared. There are, however, special causes of 
infertility. This may arise from the soil containing some- 



24 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

thing injurious to vegetation ; sucli as an excess of organic 
acids, or the presence of small quantities of sulphate of 
iron or other poisonous ingredients. It may also be due 
to an excess of otherwise valuable ingredients, such as 
organic matter, sand, lime, or even clay. In the strict 
meaning of the word no soil, unless it contains some 
substance poisonous to plants, is absolutely barren ; but 
one may call a soil barren which will not produce such 
plants as the farmer cultivates. Such a soil may be 
made fertile by adding to it the substances in which it is 
deficient ; but if this cannot be done except at a cost as 
great or greater than that for which fertile soil can be 
procured, the soil may be regarded as practically worth- 
less. 

Natural and acquired Fertility. — The distinction here 
must not be forgotten. Sir James B. Lawes in discussing 
this subject, writes thus : ^* The natural fertility of a soil, 
whether high or low in degree, is, comparatively speak- 
ing, a permanent quality; it can only be injuiiously 
affected by the continuance of an exhaustive system of 
cropping for a long period of time ; it is the property of 
the landlord; and, excepting in the case of very light 
soils, it is the chief element in determining the rent- 
nature of the land. Acquired fertility, or ^condition,' 
as it is termed, is a quality distinct from the natural 
fertility of soil ; it is due to the accumulation within the 
soil of manure matters which may be withdraw^n or re- 
duced by cropping within a comparatively short period 
of time. It is a quality dependent on the capital ex- 
pended by the tenant in the purchase of cattle food or 
manures, and is, therefore, his property." But, as the 
proverb has it, '' Nature passes Mirture ; " and a soil 
which is naturally fertile is better than one which is fer- 
tile only by the help of manure. 

"The fertility of a soil may be expressed," according 



COMPOSITION AND FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 25 

to Caird, '* by examples taken, first, in the natural state 
of pasture, and second!}^, in similar soils after treatment. 
The maximum of fertility in the natural state is a rich 
pasture capable of fattening an ox and two sheep on an 
acre. Such soils are exceptional, though in most counties 
they are to be met with .... The minimum of fertility 
may be exemplified by a bleak mountain pasture, where 
ten acres will barely maintain a small sheep. 

The artificial maximum or minimum which results 
from the treatment of soils of the same quality is more 
instructive, and may be clearly exemplified by taking two 
of the experiments which have been carried on by Mr. 
Lawes of Rothamsted for the last thirty years. Con- 
fining the comparison to the average of the last twelve 
years, the following was the weight in pounds of an 
average crop : — 

Corn, 
lbs. 

Wheat, grown continuously, without manure 730 

^' " *' with special manure.. 2,340 

The soils here are exactly similar and in the same 
field, strong land on clay with a substratum of chalk. 
The management is the same, in so far as culture is con- 
cerned; both crops are kept equally clean and free from 
weeds; the same seed is used, and they are exposed to the 
same changes of weather. The only difference is, that in 
the one case nature has for thirty years been unassisted 
by manure, and in tlie other the soil receives every year 
the various kinds of manure which have been found most 
suitable to the crop. The result of this treatment is a 
return of three times the weight of corn and four times 
the weight of straw, for an expenditure of manure which 
leaves a profit of one hundred per cent, on its cost. In 
both cases the wheat is grown continuously year after year. 

Exhaiistiou of Fertility.— The effect of continued 



straw. 


Total. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


1,120 


1,850 


4,928 


7,268 



26 THE SOIL OF THE PARM. 

crop2:)ing, without manuring, is to reduce the stock of 
available fertility in the soil. But since it is the minimum, 
of any one essential ingredient and not the maximum of 
the others which is the measure of fertility, it follows 
that a soil which is exhausted for one plant may still 
contain an abundant food suj^ply for a plant of another 
kind. A rotation of crops will in such case defer the 
period of exhaustion. But whatever the crops cultivated, 
it is plain that continued croppmg without the use of 
manures must ultimately bring us to a time when the 
crops grown will no longer pay the cost of cultivation. 

The particular substance on which the crops grown 
have made the largest demands, and which was originally 
most deficient in the soil, Avill be the first to become ex- 
hausted. Further, the more available substances will be 
removed while the less soluble will remain behind; a poor 
soil will be reduced to sterility sooner than a rich one ; a 
shallow soil will fail sooner than a deep one ; and a light 
'soil sooner than a stiff one. All soils, however, are ca- 
pable of yielding annually from their stores of natural 
fertility % certain amount of produce, and this constant 
abstraction of their substance is not necessarily incon- 
sistent Avith the maintenance of fertility ; for, indepen- 
dently of the small quantity of vegetable food, so to 
speak, available for use at any one time, an immense 
store resides in most soils in a dormant condition, capable 
of grad-ual development as it is required. 

Restoration of Fertility. — As cropping removes these 
substances from the soil, they are replaced more or less 
rapidly and completely by the agencies of the weather. 
The action of earth-worms is also useful in this respect, 
for it is as soil-fertilizers rather than as soil-formers that 
earth-worms are of importance to agriculture. Indeed, 
they are rarely met with in soils that are very destitute 
of organic matter. The richer the soil, however, and 



COMPOSITIOI^T AKD FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 27 

the more it is manured, the more numerous they are. 
Their action as soil-fertilizers consists in swallowing 
earth, leaves, and organic matter of all kinds, triturating 
it, converting it, and then ejecting it over the surface of 
the field. In this way they very soon effect a complete 
inversion of the soil down to a certain depth, especially 
on meadow land, which is left undisturbed to their opera- 
tion. They even make additions to the soil by bringing 
up fresh matter from the subsoil. Every time a worm is 
driven by dry weather or any other cause to descend deep, 
it brings to the surface, when it empties the contents of 
its body, a few particles of fresh earth. At the same time 
it fertilizes the subsoil, by opening up passages which en- 
courage the roots of plants to penetrate deeper, these 
passages being lined with excreted matter which provides 
a store of nourishment for the roots. On meadow land, 
Darwin found these worm-casts amount annually to 
eighteen tons per acre, and on good arable land to about 
ten tons. Dr. Gilbert has analysed worm-casts, and 
found them to contain .34 per cent, of nitrogen, which 
is several times more than is found m ordinary soils. 
Ten tons of these castings will thus yield eighty pounds 
of nitrogen, or as much as is contained in two acres of a 
wheat crop. 

By various artificial means, tillage, drainage, clay- 
burning, the application of lime, or manures, the pro- 
cesses of natural soil-renovation may be greatly accel- 
erated. And these are the subjects of the remaining 
chapters of this book. But it is plain from the natural 
influences, as well as the artificial operations, to which 
soils are amenable, that there is hope for almost any 
soil — that in few cases can land be so run out as to re- 
quire the direct supply of all the substances which are 
needed to create fertility, for many of them are already 
present, and it only requires a little skillful management 
to exhibit them. It is on this principle that we must ex- 



28 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

plain the practice, often to be seen, of allowing wornout 
land to rest for a while after a long period of mismanage- 
ment has exhausted its fertility. The success of this ex- 
pedient, however, does not justify the practice, which is 
obviously most wasteful both of time and means. The 
amount of active fertility in the soil ought, by a judicious 
system of cropping and consumption on the farm, to be 
made nearly to reproduce itself year by year ; and the 
gradual development of that which lies dormant, instead 
of acting as a sinking fund to wipe out the evils of past 
mismanagement would then go annually to increase the 
fertility of the land. 



CHAPTER IV. 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. — DRAINAGE AND IRRI- 
GATION. 

Land-Drainage — objects, process, results, expense and profit.— Irrigation 
— object aimed at, metliods adopted, results. — Sewage irrigation. 

Land Drainage. — Whatever the composition or natural 
capability of a soil, its fertility depends materially upon 
its relations to the water which falls upon it. If the rain- 
water has free access throughout it, free passage through 
it, not only are ingredients added which the roots ab- 
sorb for the nourishment of the plant, but these in- 
gredients are available in the' laboratory of the soil for 
those purposes by which plant food is manufactured from 
the material of soil itself and from the manure added to 
it ; and, above all, the full use is obtained of a necessary 
carrier of plant food by the hungry mouths — the absorbent 
ends of root-flbres to which it must be brought. Upon 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 29 

the permeability, as well as on the composition of a soil, 
its fertility is thns very materially dependent ; and land 
drainage, either natural or artificial, is essential to it. 

When there is an excess of water in a soil, and no pro- 
vision exists for withdrawing it, the interstitial canals 
become completely filled, to the exclusion of the necessary 
amount of air on which the activity of the soil, considered 
as a laboratory for the provision of plant food depends. 
When the soil is drained, the superfluous water flows oif 
through the air canals, and only so much moisture is re- 
tained as can be absorbed by the minuter pores within 
the small particles of earth ; and as there is, then, free 
communication through these canals between the pores 
and the drains, it is evident that the water will all be 
withdrawn from the soil except that which is held by 
capillary attraction. Thus the rain, which falls upon 
and is absorbed by the surface-ground, percolates towards 
the drainage level, flushing every crevice and canal in 
its descent, leaving behind it the nutritive ingredients 
which it carries in suspension or in solution, and on 
which the plants can feed as it passes by their roots, or 
which the soil, acting as a filter, extracts and appro- 
priates. 

The object of land-drainage is not merely to render wet 
ground sufficiently dry for tillage operations, but so to 
regulate the passage of moisture that, while the soil 
shall have every facility for absorbing the necessary 
quantity, stagnation, and the consequent starvation of 
the plants, shall be prevented. Almost all lands require 
it, in whole or in part, and there are few fields which 
can be economically cultivated without draining some 
portion of them. 

The causes which wet the soil of any field requiring 
drainage must first be considered ; when these are under- 
stood, it will be easy to decide upon the best means of 
providing a remedy. But in this consideration the strata 



30 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

of the district must be taken into account, as well as tlie 
contour of the surface, and the texture of the soil and 
subsoil of the particular field. 

If the surface of the ground be level, and the structure 
of the soil uniform, the drains may be arranged at regular 
intervals apart, with the feeders at right angles to the 
mains, and the necessary slope must be gained by cutting 
upwards from a sufficiently deep outfall. In any case the 
mains must be placed at the lowest level, delivering into 
a ditch or brook, and the minor drains should run into 
them in the direction of the inclination of the ground. 
When the inclination of the surface varies, though there 
should be sufficient fall for discharge if the drains were 
cut throughout to a uniform depth, yet it is necessary to 
observe a sufficient uniformity of fall in the pipes to 
hinder any risk of a deposit of mud in any part of their 
course. 

If the substrata consists of layers of various retentive 
power, their relative positions must be regarded in the 
arrangement of the drains. Instead of following rigid 
rules for fixing the proportionate depths and distances 
of drains in light and heavy soils, we must determine 
these points by reference to the thickness and order of 
the substrata no less than by the character or texture of 
the soil itself. 

Practically these are determined by digging holes four 
feet deep here and there in a field and taking a drain of 
the intended depth up the field in their neighborhood. 
The holes will fill with water if the land needs draining ; 
and the effect of the drain in emptying them at distances 
of three, five, seven yards, etc., will indicate twice that 
measure as the proper interval to be adopted between the 
drains. 

If the upper bed be retentive, and of such depth that 
the drains cannot be cut completely through it, the best 
system to adopt will be that of comparatively shallow 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 31 

drains at close intervals ; and, on the contrary, a pervious 
material should have deeper drains at wider intervals. If 
a thin bed of clay rests upon a porous substratum, the 
drains may be cut into the latter, or through it, accord- 
ing to its depth ; and they must then be laid at fre- 
quent intervals. When the case occurs, as it sometimes 
does, that a free supersoil, about three feet in depth, over- 
lies a comparatively thin bed of clay, it is often advisable 
to limit the depth of the drains to that of the porous 
bed. When springs, which are fed from a higher level, 
lie immediately below a clay substratum which exceeds 
the practicable depth of the drains, recourse may be had 
to tapping, by means of an auger-hole or vertical bore, 
which will open communication to the drains, by which 
the contents of the spring may be carried off, and the 
liability to mischief caused by their bursting forth at a 
lower level will be prevented. 

The drainage of deep and w^et boggy land is a gradual 
process, requiring sometimes years of patience before 
success is attained. Frequent open ditches should, at 
first, be cut as deep as the sides will stand, and then 
gradually deepened as the land subsides, taking care 
always to keep them well cleaned out. When the land 
has become sufficiently consolidated, the usual pipe 
drains may be put in, but they should be laid rather be- 
yond the depth which would be thought necessary in a 
firmer soil of the same nature. If the moss will rot 
carry the ordinary pipes, it will be advantageous to use 
collars with them, in order to prevent their displacement. 

Marshes, and oven lakes, which occupy a bowl-shaped 
cavity, rendering drainage by the ordinary means im- 
practicable, liave often been successfully drained by bor- 
ing or digging through the impermeable surface layer 
where it is not thick, and rests upon a porous substratum 
of sufficient depth to receive the water and drain it from 
the surface. But this method must not be tried without 



32 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

due attention to the disposition of the sectional strata of 
the district, for the porous soil may be surcharged with 
water from a higiier level, and the proposed cure might 
only prove an aggravation of the existing evil. In that 
case the object may be obtained by cutting a deep ditch 
or canal through the bank on a level with the bottom of 
the lake. 

In ordinary practice it is the texture of the soil and 
subsoil, and the nature or the slope, which determine 
the proper depth and distance of drains. Deep drains 
are longer in beginnmg to flow, but, if the soil is porous, 
they will carry off the surface water, after heavy rains, 
sooner than shallow drains. They also drain a greater 
bulk of the soil, and allow the water time to deposit the 
particles of mould and manure which it carries down from 
the surface of the ground. 

In an open soil, which the water penetrates freely, the 
drain will draAV from long distances if the depth is great; 
but in stiff, compact soils, percolation is more difficult, 
and the drains will draw from a smaller distance than in 
free and open soils where the water finds a ready escape. 
No amount of 'depth will compensate for excessive dis- 
tance on a compact soil, because the material either re- 
sists the passage of the water altogether, or the removal 
is so slow that the drainage is worthless. 

The requirements of vegetation must also be considered 
in determining the proper depths of drains; and the 
depths to which the rootlets of the plants penetrate may 
afford some indication of how far the free subjacent water 
should be permitted below the surface. As its availability 
for J^heir supply will be regulated by the porosity of the 
soil, the bottom of the drains may be at a less distance 
from the roots on a heavy soil than on a light one. In 
dry summers, grass-land, especially, is sometimes liable 
to injury, owing to the land being dried below the root- 



IMPEOVEMEKT OF SOILS. 33 

lets, wliicli the capillary power of the soil is thus unable 
to feed. 

Another circumstance which will occasionally have an 
influence in regulating the depth, is the degree of slope 
which can be obtained, according to the surface-levels of 
the district. Theoretically, water will flow if there is 
but the smallest possible deviation from a horizontal line, 
but in practice this is not sufficient, for it implies a 
perfectly smooth and regular bed, a condition which can- 
not be expected to exist in land -drains. The water 
sliould not pass too quickly through the soil, before it 
has time to deposit its nutritive ingredients, but neither 
should it be allowed to stagnate, as it will do if the 
drains are deeper than it can readily permeate, or if the 
fall is insufficient to induce a free discharge. When the 
drains are sufficiently active they will not allow the water 
to stand for any length of time on the surface after the 
most heavy rains. 

For purposes of cultivation the drains should seldom, 
if ever, be laid at a less depth than three feet from the 
surface of the ground. In grass-lands two and one-half 
feet may be sufficient, but where other circumstances are 
favorable, three feet should be the minimum depth. 

The laying of the pipes should be entrusted to a careful 
workman, who is paid days' wages, as more attention in 
the performance of the work is thus insured than when it 
is done by the drainer at piece-work. 

It is very important that the pijies should be large 
enough for the quantity of water they have to discharge. 
If the fall is considerable, a pipe of less dimensions will 
suffice than where the inclination is smaller. In practice, 
after the depth and interval of the intended drainage have 
been determined by trial holes in the manner described, 
and after any particular springs of Avater have been dealt 
with by special conduits taken through the wet spots 
thus created, and after all old Avater channels have been 



34 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

furnished with pipes laid at sufficient depths, and prop- 
rly fiiiad in — the systematic drainage of a field which 
needs the operation is begun at the lowest level in it. 
The ditch is cleaned out by which the w^ater is to escape. 
Tlie main drain is dug (from a point six to eight inches 
above the botton of the ditch) along the lower edge of 
the field parallel with its side, from which it may be 
distant five yards or more, and as deep (to at least four 
feet) as possible. Into this drain the minor drains de- 
liver over the top of the four to six-inch pipes which 
are placed in it. These minor drains, at the depth 
wdiich has been resolved upon, are taken right up the 
slope, unless it be very steep, and two-inch pipes are 
placed in them. If the field is more than two hun- 
dred yards long, there should be a second main drain 
crossing it midway of its length, into which the upper 
series of minor drains deliver. The pipes should be 
carefully placed and carefully covered with the earth 
taken out. It is not necessary to put straw or turf over 
them before the earth which has been taken out is re- 
placed. If there is any considerable remainder of the 
earth, it should be spread on the land, all stones being 
removed ; and the turf, which in pastures has been first 
dug out, should, as soon as the earth has settled suffi- 
ciently, be replaced and rolled down ; and the work may 
then be considered complete. It will often be possible 
to economize the labor ])y sending a plow along the line 
of each drain to turn out the first six inches, by horse- 
power. A double furrow will be necessary to open up 
the work efficiently ; and in the case of grass-lands the 
plowing will be more effective if it be not too deep. 
And then these furrow slices, thrown out on either side 
without being detached from the land, can be brought 
too^ether over the finished drain and rolled down. But 
the operation cannot be considered complete without 
careful provision for its permanence by a properly built 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 35 

outfall. The last pipe of the main should pass through 
brickwork whose foundation is laid beiow tlie level of 
the bottom of the ditch, and it should be protected by a 
flap or gird. And the exit-water should fall from this 
opening on to a slab of stone laid on the bottom of the 
ditch, so as to hinder any risk of undermining the brick- 
work by its continual fall. 

The cost per acre of land-draining is more generally 
covered by the consequent increased value of the land, 
than that of any other agricultural improvement. What- 
ever the interval or depth, the expense depends on the 
character of the soil or subsoil, the local rate of wages, 
the cost of the tiles, and the distance of the kiln. 

In all cases it will be understood that the end desired 
is the nearest possible approach to the natural examples 
of the best soil resting on pervious subsoils, where the 
rainfall finds a gradual passage through the soil and sub- 
soil, sinking always where it falls, carrying the generally 
warmer temperature of the air into the land — carrying 
also many an element of plant food, which the air con- 
tains, directly to the roots of plants— carrying, too, the 
air itself, the great oxidizer, amidst the matters organic 
and inorganic which require its influence for their con- 
version into available plant food — proving, by its action 
as a solvent, and its passage over the immense inner 
superficies of the soil, an active caterer for the stationary 
roots. At the same time it is hindered from doing the 
mischief which on undrained land the rainfall cannot fail 
of doing. The manure particles of the soil, if they do to 
some extent escape through drainage^ are at any rate not 
washed wholesale from the surface into the furrows and 
ditches, which in the case of undrained land receive 
them without the subsoil having had a chance of retain- 
ing them. 

Irrigation* — This, which at first seems the exact con- 



36 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

verse of land drainage, is but another example of the 
fertilizing use of water when properly employed. In 
both cases it is the passage of water througii the soil 
which is the object aitned at ; in both the water is useful 
as a carrier of temperature and of various elements of 
plant food ; in both the benefit is derived to some extent 
fi'om the increased activity induced in those chemical 
processes within the soil by which plant food is derived 
from the comparatively inert condition in which it nat- 
urally lies. In both processes it is the stagnation of 
water upon or in the soil which is the evil to be removed; 
and there is rarely any good derived from irrigation un- 
less it be accompanied by land drainage. Of course the 
conditions under which the process is conducted are very 
different in different climates, and in our temperate 
climate we can hardly realize the advantage of irrigation. 
In many tropical countries rain falls so seldom, and at 
such lengthened intervals, that field irrigation affords 
the only possible chance for the former to grow profitable 
crops. In our own country it is not as the necessary pro- 
vision in the absence of which the land would be barren, 
but it is only as increasing the activity of the fertilizing 
agencies already present that irrigation acts. 

Soils suited to Irrigation. — Light porous soils, and 
particularly gravels and sands, are most improved by 
irrigation. Tenaceous and clay soils are seldom benefited 
by it ; never, except in connection with thorough draining. 
In all cases, indeed, the drainage of the land must pre- 
cede its irrigation. The soil to be irrigated must be 
in a condition enabling it to drain itself dry ; otherwise 
irrigation, so far from proving a benefit, may be produc- 
tive of the worst results. It is not only important that 
water be brought into the ground ; it is equally important 
that it should pass off immediately after accomplishing 
the object sought. 



IMPROVEMEKT OF SOILS. 37 

All waters are suitable for irrigation except those con- 
taining mineral substances deleterious to vegetable life — 
such as the drainage from peat swamps and mineral 
springs, etc. Water from a running stream or river is 
generally superior to that from wells or springs ; the 
former not only containing many salts which it has dis- 
solved out of the soil or rocks as it passed over them, but 
being also more richly freighted with bodies . extracted 
partly from the air, such as oxygen and ammonia. Of 
spring and river waters, those denominated "hard" are 
the best, and owe this quality to the presence of sulphate 
and carbonate of lime and magnesia. 

Effects of Irrigation.— The first effect of water, when 
made to flow over tlie soil, is to soften it and render 
it more permeable to the roots of plants, and to the 
air. AVater acts still further in dissolving out the food, 
and producing those chemical changes which must take 
place in the manures before they are fitted for nourish- 
ment. And owing both to this and to its conveyance of 
fertile matters from a distance which are deposited on 
the fields overflown, the increase from irrigation is some- 
times four-fold, when the soil, the season, and the water 
are all favorable ; and it is seldom less than doubled. 
The quality of grass from irrigated meadows is but 
slightly inferior to that grown upon dry soils ; and for 
pasturage it is found that animals do better in dry seasons 
. upon the former, and in wet upon the latter. 

Modes of Irri^atinff.— These must depend on the con- 
figuration of the surface, and the supply of water. Some- 
times reservoirs are made for accumulating water from 
rain and iiumclations ;. but the usual source of supply is 
from streams or rivulets, or copious springs which dis- 
charge their water at a level above the ground to be irri- 
gated. The former are dammed up, to turn the water 



38 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

aside into ditches or aqueducts, through which it is con- 
ducted to the fields, where it is divided into smaller rills, 
and finally spread over the surface, sinking into and 
through the soil. When it is desirable to bring more 
water upon meadows than is required for saturating the 
ground, and its escape to fields below is to be avoided, 
other ditches should be made at intervals upon the slope, 
to arrest and carry away the surface water. 

Ridffe-and-Furrow or Bed-Work System. — Where the 
land is nearly level throughout its surface, it is laid out in 
a series of ridges. Along the top of these the irrigating 
channels are led, from which the water flows over either 
side, being taken up by the furrows, which occupy the 
hollows between the ridges. From the main conductor, 
and at right angles to it, the various feeders are taken off. 
These consist of smaller trenches four or five inches in 
depth, made widest, say twelve or sixteen inches where 
they issue from the main conductor, and gradually lessen- 
ing as they recede from it. They may be formed at dis- 
tances of ten yards or less; being made nearer on stiff soils, 
and further apart where the soil is loose and porous. They 
occupy tlie ridge lines of the lands in which the field is 
laid, and the furrows in the hollows between these lands 
communicate with a main surface drain, at the lower 
part of the meadow. The drain conveys the water back 
to the river from which it was taken ; or becomes in its 
turn the main conductor to another meadow on a lower . 
level ; and in this way several meadows may be irrigated 
by means of the same water. This is known as the Bed- 
A¥ork or Eidge-and-Furrow system. It is only suitable 
to grass lands, and to land which has nearly a level 
surface. 

The Catch-Work System.— On a sloping surface a dif- 
ferent plan must be adopted for the conveyance and dis- 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 39 

tribution of the water. The feeders are not carried lon- 
gitudinally down the meadow, but across the line of do- 
scent. They are filled as before from a main conductor ; 
but the water having overflowed the lower side of each, 
is not discharged into smaller drains, as in the former 
case, but into the next feeder lower down ; the purpose 
of the catch-furrow being to cut off the rills into which 
a surface flow is apt to collect, and re-start the overflow 
evenly once more. The water is thus conveyed from 
feeder to feeder until it reaches the main drain, at 
the lower part of the field. This is termed the Catch- 
Work system, and as it can be adopted where the surface 
is too much inclined to admit of bed-work, it is fre- 
quently practicable where the other is not, and is often 
combmed with it in the same meadow where there are 
inequalities of surface. On arable land the catch-work 
system is best, as the bed-work would be continually de- 
stroyed. It is also less expensive to begin with than lay- 
ing the land out in beds on the ridge-and-furrow system. 

Time for applying Water to Meadows.— Where the 
winters are not severe, water may be kept many days at 
a time on the fields during the entire season of frosts. 
This protects the grasses, which, on the approach of warm 
weather, at once start into growth and yield an early and 
abundant crop. But in general this system cannot be 
successfully practised. The water may be admitted, at 
proper intervals, freely during the spring and early part of 
the summer, when vegetation is either just coming, or is 
going forward rapidly. It is sufficient to flood the sur- 
face thoroughly, and then shut off the water for a time. 
The water should be taken off before the grasses com- 
mence ripening : indeed, the common use of the water 
meadow in localities where the soil abounds in lime where 
they are most useful, is in providing the earliest succu- 
lent food for ewes and lambs, which are folded on them 



40 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

long before the grass throws up a flower stem. When 
kept for hay, immediately after the grass is cut, the 
water may be let in as occasion requn-es, during the 
drouth of summer ; and pastures may be irrigated from 
time to time as the weather may demand, throughout the 
entire season. 

Quantity of Water Required for Irrigation.—As to 

the quantity of water, it necessarily varies with the 
nature and condition of the soil, with the character of 
the subsoil, with the inclination of the surface, and with 
the crops cultivated. In Italy, it is generally held that 
the continued discharge of one cubic foot per second 
during twenty-four hours, is sufficient for the irrigatioH 
of four acres of meadow land. Hence, as the total volume 
discharged in that time amounts to eighty-six thousand 
four hundred cubic feet, and the area watered to one 
hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and 
forty square feet, it appears that a stratum of water equal 
to nearly six inches in depth is in this case spread over 
the surface of the meadow. Twelve waterings are given 
during the season, at intervals of fourteen days. The 
above calculations assume, however, that the whole water 
is absorbed by the soil, which is never the case. The 
absorption in each watering in that case probably ranges 
from half to one-third of the total quantity of water 
em.ployed. 

In English water-meadows the amount of water poured 
over the land far exceeds this amount ; and the best effect, 
when the water itself brings not only warmth but food, 
is obtained where there is a continually moving thin layer 
of water over the whole surface in addition to the quan- 
tity which passes through the substance of the land to 
the drains in the subsoil. 

Sewage Irrigation, by which the greatest luxuriance 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 41 

of growth known to English agriculture is obtained, is 
conducted generally on the '^Bed-work" system. The 
most rapidly growing succulent crops, and Italian Eye- 
grass is the best of them all, are employed, and the water 
is poured on probably at the rate of four hundred tons 
per acre, equal to a thickness of four inches of water, 
during a few hours twice in the growth of a single crop 
or cutting. The land being drained passes the whole of 
this rich and fertilizing flood among the fibrous roots 
of the plants by which its substance is permeated. And 
a cutting of ten to fifteen tons weight per acre of the 
grass is obtained as the result of not more than a month 
or five weeks' growth. The land is soaked twice or thrice 
at intervals of a fortnight after each cutting ; and four 
or five cuttings of grass are thus obtained from the ap- 
pliction of four or five thousand tons of the filthy water 
in the course of the year. Here, as well as in ordinary 
irrigation accompanied by land drainage, the result is 
due to an added temperature, and an addition of plant 
food, both of which the soil experiences, and especially 
to the constant motion and passage of this food beside 
and among the hungry roots of the plants which feed 
upon it. 



42 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 



CHAPTER V. 

IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS.— MIXING, CLAYING, LIMING, 
CHALKING, MARLING, BURNING. 

Mixing Soils : Clay, Sand, and Lime.— Claying : Process, Cost.— 
Liming : Marling, Chalking.— Burning : Paring and Burning, 
Stifle burning, Clay burning. 

Mixing Soils. — Soils which possess conspicuous de- 
fects 111 their physical and even in their chemical proper- 
ties may in many cases be rendered fertile and productive 
by a i^roper admixture. Loams, indeed, which are per- 
haps the most productive kind of soils, are naturally joro- 
duced in this way, being a mixture of sand and clay. 
The nearer, therefore, we can bring a soil of a different 
nature in approach to this character, the greater probably 
will be its improvement. 

When a soil is too clayey, it will be improved by an 
application of sand or sandy loam; calcareous, sandy, and 
peaty soils are equally benefited by the addition of clay; 
while calcareous earth may be added to clays, sands, and 
peats with the certainty of ultimate and permanent bene- 
fit. There are thus at least four varieties of soil wliicli 
may be profitably improved by admixture, if circum- 
stances are favorable. There is this, however, to remark 
as limiting our ability in this respect — that it is only 
those earths whose presence in comparatively small pro- 
portion is sufficient that we can usefully apply. If land 
be too stiff, it would probably need its sandy part to be 
doubled in order to make the land as friable and loose in 
texture as is desired; and there might thus have to be an 
addition of five-hundred tons of sandy loam per acre — a 
labor whose cost is absolutely prohibitive. To double 
the percentage of alumina in a very sandy soil, and thus 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 43 

strengthen its texture and improve it for every kind of 
crop, need not involve the addition of more than fifty to 
one-hundred cubic yards of marl or clay — an operation 
which is quite within ordinary farm practice. In this 
connection also it is necessary to ascertain the nature, 
not only of the soil, but of the subsoil, the latter often 
affording the readiest means of improving the former. 
Where a vegetable or a sandy soil, for example, rests im- 
mediately upon a substratum of clay which is near the 
surface, the clay is often dug up and the surface top- 
dressed with it. Oontrarywise, where the clay is upper- 
most some good may sometimes be done by deeiDcning 
it and mixing it with the sandy layer below. Where the 
soil and subsoil are similar in character and cannot be 
used in that way, it may still hajipen that two soils of 
oj^posite properties occur sufficiently near to one another 
to be used for mutual improvement. 

There are situations, however, where neither of these 
advantages will be found to offer; the field, the farm, or 
even the entire district maybe uniformly sandy or clayey; 
and other alternatives than mixing must then be resorted 
to. The light soils will probably be consolidated by 
sheep-folding, and by heavy rolling; while the strong 
lands will be rendered more workable by having green 
crops plowed under and by being heavily dressed with 
caustic lime in addition to ordinary manurings. 

The benefits of an admixture of soils are obviously two- 
fold, the mechanical texture as well as the chemical com- 
position of soils being altered and improved. A poor 
sand, for instance, after an addition of clay or marl, is 
rendered richer as well as stronger and more substantial, 
so that plants thrive better in it, and a less quantity of 
manure will suffice to afford a full crop. 

Claying, as we have seen, may be usefully followed as 
a practice to be adopted and repeated on sandy, peaty, and 



44 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

calcareous soils. The quantity necessary will depend on 
the quality of the clay used, and on the character of the 
soil to be improved. It will also, to some extent, be 
regulated by the facilities for obtaining it, and by the 
distance from which it is to be brought. If the clay has 
to be carted from beyond the field, the operation will 
be found laborious and expensive. It takes one-hundred 
and thirty-four cubic yards to cover an acre an inch deep; 
but this is a very heavy dose when we consider that the 
ordinary depth of cultivation does not exceed six or eight 
inches. The usual application varies from fifty to one- 
hundred cartloads per acre. 

The clay is spread upon the field before winter, so that 
the frost may break it down and render it fit to be in- 
timately mixed with the soil before working the land in 
the spring. There are various methods of conducting 
the operation. If the subsoil of the field supplies the 
material, it is usual to open a number of deep furrows, at 
twelve or twenty yards apart; and as the clay is dug out 
it is spread equally over the surface within range, so as to 
cover the whole interval. When the distance is greater, 
the plank and wheelbarrow will afford the readiest and 
most economical means of working up to the point where 
carts would have to be employed. In extensive operations 
of this nature, especially where the material to be applied 
is situated at the end of the field to be operated on, or 
beyond it, the work may be done by means of small 
trucks and a portable railway readily laid. 

The cost of the process necessarily varies with the 
nature of the material, the quantity applied, and the dis- 
tance to be carted, etc. A dressing of clay will cost more 
per cubic yard than a dressing of sand, when the latter is 
a desirable application, from the difficulty with which in 
the former case the manual portion of the labor is per- 
formed. 



IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 45 

Liminf^ is useful not only as adding a necessary element 
to soils deficient in it, not only as constituting a mellow- 
ing and ameliorating agency in respect of the texture of 
the soil, but also as supplying an important agency in 
vegetable soils, and especially in clay soils, in the general 
chemistry of the land on which the provision of plant 
food depends. In marling especially, as well as in liming 
proper, it is the calcareous element which is the most ac- 
tive of the elements supplied. In the latter, of course, it 
is the clay which gives the marl its characteristic texture, 
and renders it adapted especially for the lighter and more 
vegetable kind of soils. The claying, which has added 
so much to the fertility of the Fens of Cambridgeshire 
and Lincolnshire across the water in England, owes its 
fertilizing influence, to a considerable extent, to the lime 
which it contains. 

€halkiii§^, — This is a common practice on the edge of 
chalk districts on clay soils, and wherever lime is deficient 
in the soil, is found beneficial, both as improving the tex- 
ture and as adding plant food directly to the land. Some 
of its fertilizing influence is no doubt due to the small 
quantity of phosphoric acid which it sometimes con- 
tains ; and its influence on the soil and its contents is of 
the same kind as that of caustic lime, though less ener- 
getic. 

The chalk is carried on to the field perhaps eighty to 
hundred cubic yards per acre, set down from the carts in 
little heaps four or five 3^ards apart, thereafter spread and 
left to the influences of a winter frost, which disintegrates 
the mass and enables its moie perfect mixture with the 
soil. 

Paring and Burning'. — This was at one time a common 
method of breaking up old sward in some countries of the 
old world, but, except m a few districts, tlie practice has 



46 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

fallen into disuse. There is, however, no quicker or 
better way of bringing an old turf into tilth. It saves 
time, and always ensures a crop, and a good one. This 
is easily accounted for. It liberates plant food from the 
minerals of the soil ; it purifies, sweetens, and cleanses 
the soil, breaking up and driving out injurious acids, 
destroying grubs and parasites cf various kinds which 
prey upon both crops and cattle, and killing the seeds 
and roots of weeds ; and it improves the mechanical tex- 
ture of clay soils. The loss of nitrogen which occurs 
through burning, will be amply made up by subsequent 
liberal management in all cases where the mechanical 
texture of the soil does not suffer ; and injury would ul- 
timately result only in the case of a few sandy soils. 

The surface of the land is taken off to a depth of two 
or three inches by the paring plow, or with the breast-plow 
— a paring tool on a long shaft with broad horizontal 
T-handles shoved horizontally by thrusts from the thighs, 
which are protected by wooden shields strapped to them. 
When the weather is dry, the turf will be ready to burn 
in a fortnight. A little straw or wood is taken to begin 
with. Then drier bits of turf are put on tlie fire. As 
the heap burns, more turf is carefully put round against 
the openings whence the smoke issues. This goes on, the 
heap continually growing in size, and the burning going 
on inside, though there never appears any blaze. After 
the first fires are well lighted, they serve to light all the 
other heaps, and no more straw is wanted. When all the 
heaps are lighted, the workman goes from heap to heap 
adding turf until the whole is burnt or charred. 

A good deal has lately been taught us about the con- 
servative influence of the living plant, whether crop or 
weed, on the fertilizing contents of the soil. IS^evertlieless, 
as a bit of good practical farming, we venture to i-ecom- 
mend the practice of paring and burning stubbles in the 
autumn. If set about as soon as the corn is cleared off 



IMPKOVEMEKT OF SOILS. 47 

the fields, no employment of men and horses at that time 
will pay better. The land gets an effectual cleaning, 
snch as will be a check on weeds throughout the entire 
rotation. Plant food is at the same time set free. The 
soil is, moreover, brought at once to a fine tilth ; and, if 
sown immediately, the land may be covered with a vigor- 
ous growing and useful catch-crop in less time than would 
have sufficed to clean it without burning. The crop is 
usually consumed on the land ; but, if organic matter is 
required m the soil, it may be plowed in as green ma- 
nure. In either case the land will be covered during 
winter, and loss by drainage prevented ; it will be direct- 
ly enriched by sheep-folding or green-manuring, and it 
will be in the most favorable condition, both as regards 
cleanness and tilth, in the spring. 

The work is commenced by broad-sharing the stubbles 
twice over in opposite directions, to a depth of about three 
inches. This is harrowed. Then, when all is dry, horse 
and hand rakes bring the loose soil and weeds into heaps 
for burning. Straw is only used, when necessary, to 
start the first fires with. AVhen the heaps are half burned 
through, the clods are raked up towards the fire, and 
fresh earth put on the top. This is repeated the last 
thing at night. ^N'ext morning, if all has been properly 
managed, the bulk of the heaps will be sufficiently burned 
to have killed all vegetable and animal life that was con- 
tained in them. After this, the fire requires a little 
trimming and tucking up to complete the work. The 
heaps may be made to contain as much as forty bushels 
each ; and forty such heaps per acre, when spread and 
plowed in, often have an effect on the subsequent crop 
equal to a dressing of dung or guano. The burning, 
especially on calcareous chiys, shows its good effects for 
several years, and the land is tilled at less cost by reason 
of 'its working more easily. 



48 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

Clay- Burning. — Stiff clays are often surface-burned, in 
the manner described above, with the object of ameUorat- 
ing their texture and rendering them more workable. 
The fertility of the soil is greatly increased at the same 
time, especially in the case of calcareous clays. 

Cobbett recommends not to burn ^he land which is to 
be cultivated, but other earth for the purpose of getting 
ashes to be brought on the land ; and he advocates burn- 
ing within v/alls of turf or earth, instead of in heaps 
above-ground. As he points out, the principle of clay- 
burning is slow combustion, and this you are sure to ef- 
fect if you can check it by addition to the heap. AVhen 
the heap is fairly alight, put on more clay wherever the 
smoke appears, but not too much at a time. This is con- 
tinued until the heap is large enough, when the fire is 
allowed to extinguish itself. 



CHAPTER YI. 



SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE OPER- 
ATIONS. 

Subsoil Plowing : Deepening and Stirring.— Trench Plowing.— Til- 
lage Operations : Plowing, Cultivating, Rolling, Steam-plowing. 
—Depth of Tillage.— Stubble Cleaning. 

These operations tend to loosen the hard earth below 
the reach of the ordinary plow, and to facilitate the 
escape of water from the surface ; they promote the cir- 
culation of air, and afford a more extended range for the 
roots of the plants, by which they obtain additional 
nourishment ; and they secure the crops against drouth, 
by enabling them to penetrate into the region of perpetual 
moisture. 



SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE. 49 

Subsoil Plowinn:. — The ultimate object of this oper- 
ation IS, of course, the deepening of the soil and loosen- 
ing the subsoil. This invariably follows from opening 
the subsoil to the ameliorating influence of the elements; 
and the beneficial result is due to the accumulation of 
vegetable matter below the ordinary range of the soil by 
the roots penetrating deeper and being left to decay in 
the bed where they have grown. The subsoil plow 
merely stirs and opens the subsoil : it does not turn a 
furrow. A common plow goes before, throwing out a 
large open furrow-slice of the active soil; the subsoil 
plow follows, entering to a depth of six or eight inches 
below the bottom of the surface furrow ; and the next 
furrow of active soil is thrown over the last opened fur- 
row of the sub-soiler. 

The subsoil implement requires to be drawn by four 
or more horses, according to the nature of the soil and 
the depth of working. 

Though of great benefit on land which is sufficiently 
dry, subsoiling does more harm than good on w^et lands. 
It is, therefore, only to be employed as an auxiliary to 
draining, and not as a substitute for it. Some time must 
elapse, however, between draining and subsoiling. When 
properly done it increases nearly every good effect of 
underdraining. Especially does it diminish injury by 
drouth, by loosening the soil and admitting air to cir- 
culate among the particles of the subsoil and. deposit its 
moisture. It deepens the soil, and renders available 
matters which are perhaps deficient m the surface soil. 
It also improves the drainage. 

Trench or Deep Plowinj?. — This is advantageous to 
such lands as are of the same nature to a considerable 
depth. For those lower parts of the soil, which have 
become filled with manure which the rains have carried 
down below the surface, are thus thrown up, to contrib- 
3 



50 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

ute to the nourishment of crops. Deep plowing is also 
useful on thin lands where the upper layer is too clayey 
and compact, and rests uj)on a bed of sand or limestone. 
By plowing deep, the sand or lime is mixed with the clay 
above, rendering it more fertile than it could be made by 
any other means. There are, however, cases m which, 
from the defective composition of the subsoil, or other 
causes, it does more harm than good. Good effects can 
only be obtained from trench plowing when the chemical 
comj)osition of the lower soil is such as to suj^i^ly m in- 
creased quantity the essential constituents of j^lant 
growth. 

Where the subsoil is inferior, the deepening of the soil 
must be made a gradual operation, and a very small 
quantity of the raw material brought to the surface at a 
time. The sub-soiler effects this object much better than 
the trench plow, as in the former case the subsoil is 
opened up and exposed to the weathering action of the 
atmosphere without bringing it abruptly to the surface. 

ORDINARY TILLAGE OPERATIOI^S. 

Whatever the physical or chemical properties of the 
soil may be, it will produce but little if not well tilled. 
And what is true in this respect of the best soil, applies 
in far stronger terms to the worst. 

Apart from its immediate end, the provision of a 
proper seed-bed, the objects and effects of tillage may be 
enumerated thus : — 

(1) To stir and loosen the entire soil to a sufficient 

depth : so that the roots of plants may freely 
extend themselves in search of food. 

(2) To pulverize the soil and mix thoroughly its 

constituent parts, so as to increase its absor- 
bent and retentive powers, and to effect an 
equal and economical distribution of manure. 



SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE. 51 

(3) To destroy weeds and foreign plants, which rob 
the crop of food and check its growtli. 

Let us add that, by opening the soil, and rendering it 
permeable to air and water, the inert materials contained 
m it, both organic and inorganic, are convertible into 
soluble plant food. And in regard to many of the insects 
which prey upon our crops, especially such as work 
beneath the soil at the roots of plants, frequent tillage is 
found to disturb them and bring them to the surface 
where they get j)icked up by birds. 

Tillage operations include all soil operations which 
apply directly to the cultivation of farm crops — plowing, 
cultivating, harrowing, and rolling, or whatever else is 
done to bring land to a proper state to receive the seed. 
They also include the operations of hoeing and weeding 
the ground after it is planted. 

Plowing. — In plowing we break up the ground into 
furrow slices, turning them over in such a manner that a 
new surface is presented to the atmosphere. This or some 
other mode of loosening and turning up the under parts 
of soils is necessary to fit them for the reception of the 
seed and the growth of crops. 

The object of plowing being to expose the upturned 
soil to the atmosphere and to create the greatest quantity 
of mould the furrow-slices can produce, it follows that 
the furrow -slice which shows the greatest surface will 
answer these ends most effectually. In the case of a 
square cut furrow-slice this is found to result when it is 
laid at an angle of forty-five degrees; and to this end 
its width must be to its depth as about ten to seven. 
If the furrow-slices are ragged, open, and broken, and 
if, being cut of various depths and widths, they are laid 
at different heights, the work is inferior. A uniform 
depth of tilth cannot then be provided by the harrow, 
and the seed will be unequally buried. 



52 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 

On lea ground the furrow is usually eight to ten inches 
in breadth by five to seven in depth. The medium depth 
of good plowing is six or seven inches. Shallower 
plowing is often inevitable on thin soils, while on deep 
land the stubble furrow may be ten inches or more in 
depth. 

The term '' feering" is applied to the commencement 
or opening of a land or ridge; and the process varies 
according to the state of the land to be plowed. On 
lea ground, as also on stubble land, there is generally an 
old furrow^ to go by, in which case two shallow furrow- 
slices are then turned, the one against the other; and 
along each side of this commencement the plowing 
moves. On turnip land, or where there is no old furrow 
to tmrn the first furrow-slices into, two furrows are thrown 
out, and then turned lightly in as before. The plowing 
goes on in this direction, the horses alwa3^s turning to 
the right-about at the end of the furrows until half of 
the land or ridge is plowed. The plowing so far has 
been what is technically called •'gathering." At this 
stage, however, a second feering is commenced, and the 
same order followed until another half land has been 
gathered. Thus, if the distance between the two feerings 
was ten yards, five yards would be gathered in each case, 
and five yards of unplowed land still lie between them. 
In order to plow out this, the plowman now alters his 
course, and turns always to the left-about at both ends, 
laying furrow after furrow towards the inside of each 
feering, until the two plowed lands meet. This is known 
as '^ casting," '^'cleaving," or ^^splittmg." On all but 
lea ground the open furrows ultimately left are usually 
turned in by running the plow once or twice back upon 
the last turned furrows. After this, the seed harrows 
take out all traces of the open furrows, and leave the 
land entirely level. 

It is, in some districts, a common practice to move only 



suB-soiLii;rG, trench plowijtg, tillage. 53 

one half the land at certain seasons bj plowing each 
furrow-slice on to its own width of unmoved soil. This, 
which is called '' raftering, " is sometimes done in the 
case of foul land to enable the harrow to deal perfectly 
with one half of the soil at a time. It is also a common 
practice to rib clay land before winter by plowing two 
furrow-slices together over an intervening width of about 
twelve inches — thus creating a ridgelet thirty inches 
wide on which the frost can exert its disintegrating 
effect. 

The points of merit in plowing are — (1) a straight 
furrow of uniform width and depth; (2) a clean cut slice, 
both on its land side and floor; (3) a well laid furrow- 
slice, having regard to compactness and form; (4) com- 
plete burial of the grass or stubble turned in; (5) a 
uniformly plowed ridge; (6) a finish showing an open 
furrow with a clean narrow bottom, the last furrow- 
slice being equal in width and height with the others. 

Many calculations have been made to prove the waste 
of time consequent upon short furrows. Under ayerage 
circumstances a pair of horses will plow an acre of grass 
land in a day of nine hours. On turnip land of the 
same quality rather more than an acre will be plowed in 
a day, and on stubble land one and one-quarter acre. 
A considerable difference will, of course, be found in 
the work accomplished by different horses and men, even 
on the same land. With a furrow nine inches wide, ex- 
actly eleven miles are travelled in plowing an acre. A 
quarter of the day or more is generally used in turning at 
the headland. 

Cultivating or Stirring. — The cultivator merely stirs 
the soil and does not turn it over like the plow; but it 
can work to an equal depth. It is especially useful in 
a spring fallow after autumn plowing, as the winter- 
weathered tilth is thereby, retained on the surface, and 



54 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

the moisture of the soil is less evaporated than when the 
land is spring plowed — a point of the first importance in 
turnip cultivation. It is also much used m prej^aring 
light land just cleared of roots for being sown with spring 
gram and seeds, as it furnishes a fine mould and keeps the 
manure near the surface. Fitted with broad points, and 
worked at a shallower depth, the cultivator is the most 
effective implement in use for stubble cleaning after har- 
vest. The substitution, when possible, of the cultivator 
for the plow is attended with a considerable saving, both 
of time and labor. 

Cultivators are adapted for either two or four horses, 
though the same implement which can be worked with 
ease by two horses on a light soil or at a shallow depth, 
will often require three or four horses on stilf land, or 
where deeper working has to be practised. If the nature 
of the soil and work admits of it, however, two horses in 
a light cultivator will do more than half the work of four 
yoked to a larger implement, as they step more freely and 
with greater ease to themselves. On light land, a two- 
horse cultivator should work live acres of fallow to a 
depth of about six inches, and four acres to a less depth 
on land where roots have been fed oif ; on stifi' land, or 
working to a greater depth, a three or four-horse cul- 
tivator would do about six acres in a day. 

Harrowini? (1) pulverizes the soil to a depth of two or 
three inches, and reduces to fineness the surface clods and 
lumps that are left after plowing, cultivating, or digging; 
(2) it shakes out and separates the weeds that are in the 
soil ; (3) it smooths surface inequalities, by which means 
the seed is more evenly deposited, and is more likely to 
have a uniform germination ; and (4), after the seed is 
sown, the harrow buries it at a moderate depth beneath 
the surface. We might add a fifth use ; for it is in many 
cases a good practice to harrow the winter-sown wheat 



SUB-SOILING, TRENCH PLOWINrx, TILLAGE. 55 

in spring, and break up tlie weathered pan npon the 
surface. 

The usual direction of harrowing after seed is sown is 
first along the furrows, then across, and finally along 
again. The quantity of land harrowed in a day dej^ends 
in a measure on the kind of harrowing as well as on the 
kind of harrow used, and on the nature of the soil. A 
two-liorse se^ of ordinary harrows covers, usually, a width 
of seven and a-half feet. That is equal to ten nine-inch 
furrows with the plow ; so that if the teams travelled at 
the same pace, a pair of horses ought to harrow as much 
land in one day as they could plow in ten. But horses, 
as a rule, travel a good deal faster, and consequently 
farther when harrowing than when plowing. It follows, 
therefore, that if a plow, travelling at the rate of eleven 
miles a day, with a nine-inch furrow, turns over exactly 
one acre of land, a set of harrows, covering ten times the 
width of a nine-inch furrow, and travelling one-fourth to 
one-third faster than the plow, must get over twelve or 
thirteen acres a day : that is, when giving one turn of the 
harrow, or a single tine, as it is called. With a double 
turn, only half that quantity of land would be covered in 
a day. These are average quantities on average land. 

Rolling: (1) breaks those clods or lumps which have 
resisted the action of the harrow; (2) it presses down 
surface stones, etc., so as to be out of the way of the 
scythe or reaping machine ; (3) it gives a greater degree 
of compactness to soil which is too light and friable, 
making it firmer around the roots of plants, and at the 
same time a less favorable breeding-ground for many 
kinds of insects ; while the smoother surface presents 
fewer points of evaporation ; (4) it presses down and 
makes firm the ground about newly-soon seeds ; and some- 
times (5), when very small seeds are to be sown, it is well 
to roll the ground first, so as to level it thoroughly and 



56 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

facilitate a more equal distribution of the seed than could 
otherwise take place ; (6) it is used to press into the 
ground the roots of those plants sown in the preceding 
autumn which have been detached by frost. 

A spring rolling on a field of winter grain will often, 
by firming the soil about its roots, save the crop ; and it 
is equally beneficial in a similar way on gTass lands. On 
light soils the loosening effects of frequent freezing and 
thawing are more or less avoided by an autumn rolling. 
Grass land cannot be too heavily rolled ; and on all light 
lands under tillage the use of the roller is indispensable 
for closing the pores and preventing the evaj^oration of 
moisture. 

But while rolling is of much benefit on light, porous, 
and lumpy soils, it is injurious on wet clays, except in 
dry weather, when they are lumpy after plowing. Roll- 
ing a stiff soil when wet renders it more difficult of cul- 
tivation, by pressing the particles still more closely 
together, and preventing the admission of air. Even 
light arable lands require the ground to be dry when 
rolled, if for no other reason than that otherwise the soil 
will adhere to the roller. Grass land, however, is best 
rolled in showery weather. 

Using the same power in each case, more land will be 
rolled in the same time on grass than on a wheat seed-bed; 
and more on a wheat seed-bed than on rough fallow land. 
A light one-horse roller, covering about six feet m width, 
will get over twelve to thirteen acres on grass land, ten 
acres on a wheat seed-bed, and eight or nine acres on fal- 
low land, in a working day of ten hours. A two-horse 
roller should get over twelve to fifteen acres on grass, ten 
to twelve acres on a wheat seed-bed, and ten acres on 
fallow. A clod-crusher, drawn by three horses, will ac- 
complish six to eight acres per day. 

Uoein^i — This operation is proceeded with while the 



SUB-SOILIKG, TRENCH PLOWING, TILLAGE. 57 

crop is growing, and it fulfills two important objects. 
First, it extirpates weeds and keeps the land clean ; and 
secondly, it stirs, loosens, and pulverizes the surface soil. 
The extirpation of weeds is of course indisjoensable to 
good cultivation. But the second principle of hoeing is 
if possible still more important. Deep and continuous 
hoeing is wonderfully elective in promoting the growth 
of plants. It prevents the soil reverting to its natural 
solidity, admits air and water, and by breaking and sub- 
dividing it, causes it to retain moisture and to present 
innumerable surfaces and fresh particles to the young 
roots. The effect is visible in the faster growth of the 
plants every time the earth is stirred about them. 

Hoeing, however, can only be practised in the case of 
crops in drills or in hills. Broadcast work is thus incom- . 
patible with thorough cultivation, even in the case of 
gram crops. If horse-hoeing is intended among the 
grain crops, the drilling should correspond with the 
horse-hoe to be used. Drilling is equally indispensable 
to all hand-hoeing. 

Steam Cwltivation. — In many cases tillage by the 
wealthy farmer may, m part at least, be advantageously 
performed by steam power. It (1) gives cheaper, deeper, 
and more efficient tillage than horse power ; it (2) ena- 
bles the work to be done Avith rapidity and at the best sea- 
son ; it (3) enables land to be more quickly and effectually 
cleaned and kept free from weeds ; it (4) promotes good 
drainage by rendering tenacious soils more friable and 
porous ; and it (5) not only effects a considerable diminu- 
tion in the number of horses, but, by relieving them of 
their heaviest work, enables you to keep those which are 
still necessary at less expense. 

Of the two mam systems of cultivating by steam, the 
double-engine system necessarily involves the largest out- 
lay to begin with ; but where the farm is large enough to 



58 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

afford a reasonable amount of work for tlie tackle, it will 
cultivate at a less cost per acre than the single engine tackle. 

Depth of Cultivation, — The proper depth at which to 
cultivate must depend chiefly upon the nature and con- 
dition of the soil, though partly also upon the kind of crop 
to he grown. Wet lands should not be plowed deep 
until they have been thoroughly drained. Alluvial soils 
and deep clay loams, where the surface and subsoils do not 
materially differ, can scarcely be tilled too deep. Thin 
soils, however, should not for present profit be plowed 
below the layer of mould; but their ultimate fertility 
and capacity may be greatly increased by subsoiling and 
heavy manuring for a series of years. It takes twice as 
much manure to fertilize land when it is plowed to a 
depth of ten inches as when it is plowed five inches ; 
and the converse is equally true — that by plowing only 
five inches the soil will be exhausted much quicker than 
when the plowing is ten inches. But whether it in- 
volves the necessity of additional manure or not, a tillage 
depth of six to ten inches is vastly preferable to a less 
depth. Von Thaer estimated that each inch of mould 
between six and ten inches increased the value of the soil 
eight per cent. 

The importance of deep tillage may be inferred from 
the great depth to which the roots of some plants will 
penetrate the soil, when conditions favor their doing so. 
And a deep soil is as beneficial for the supply of moisture 
during dry weather, as to give room for the roots of plants 
to extend themselves. Further, the deeper stratum not 
only renders the soil less subject to drouth, but it makes 
it a better retainer of heat, and furnishes abetter medium 
for the action of all the agents engaged in promoting the 
vigorous growth of plants. 

Deep and thorough tillage, therefore, is to be extolled as 
a general principle. Still, while it is useful to all crops, 



suB-soiLixG, tiie:ncii plowing, tillage. 59 

it is of more direct importance to some plants than to 
others. Root and green crops are the ones which benefifc 
most directly by deep cultivation of the soil. As these 
crops usually follow grain crops, it thus becomes desirable 
to give the deepest tillage on the grain stubbles. When 
the land has been plowed or cultivated deep in preparing 
for the green crop, deep stirring for the subsequent crops 
of the rotation may be not only unnecessary but often in- 
jurious, as being un suited to the habit of growth of the 
plant under cultivation. 

Amount of tillage requisite. — Good husbandry gives 
to every soil and crop its proper tilth. The stiffest and 
poorest soils require the greatest amount of tillage. Light 
soils, however, are rarely over-cultivated. As Tull, in his 
philosophy of tillage, has j)ointed out, much plowing and 
pulverizing of a naturally light soil will not make it more 
loose and open, but have the contrary effect, making its 
natural porousness less, and its density greater. 

It is possible, of course, to have a soil too loose, for it 
must have a certain consistency to retain moisture and 
support plants ; but too great looseness is a rare fault, and 
one not without its remedy. By harrowing the land while 
it is still damp, and by heavy rolling as it becomes drier, 
the necessary degree of firmness may always be obtained. 

The soil is more frequently too open ; but that indicates 
either a want of sufficient tillage or an injudicious appli- 
cation of it. In dry weather clay soils are brought to the 
finest tilth with the least labor, by harrowing immediately 
after plowing or cultivating, and accompanying this op- 
eration, when necessary, with the use of the roller. In a 
similar season, light and dry soils must be sown and fin- 
ished up as quickly as possible after plowing. In a wet 
vseason, the best tilth is obtained by harrowing when the 
soil IS in the stage ** twixt wet and dry." 

The mechanical condition of a good seed-bed should be 



60 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

regulated more by the kind of crop to be grown than by 
the character of the soil. We know the importance of a 
solid bottom and a fine surface for barley. Nor will 
wheat and oats grow in a very loose subsoil, though a 
fine top is of less consequence, to wheat at least. Root 
crops, on the other hand, require a seed-bed which is 
neither firm nor loose, but fine and deep. Grasses and 
clovers flourish best on a firm hard soil with a fine 
surface. 

Stubble cleaning and autumn cultiyation. — The two 

great objects of tillage, pulverization of the soil and 
destruction of weeds, are greatly facilitated by stubble 
cleaning and autumn cultivation. 

As the weeds are in their weakest condition just after 
the grain is harvested, that is the time to attack them. 
The most effectual plan of doing so is to cultivate the 
stubbles. Previous to this, however, deep-rooted weeds, 
like the dock, should be pulled ; and couch-grass, where 
it occurs in patches, should be forked out by hand. 
Then the broad-share cultivator may be run over the 
field, taking care not to cut the roots of the remaining 
weeds, but to cut under them, and so to loosen the soil, 
and the hold of the weeds upon it, that they can be 
shaken out by the harrows and gathered into heaps. It 
is not necessary to burn the weeds if there is any objec- 
tion to that plan. They might be left on the ground, if 
dead, to decompose; but as that will interfere with the 
work which has to go on, a compost may be formed of 
the weeds with quick-lime, road-scrapiugs, etc. The 
quick-lime, if used lu the proportion of one-eighth, will 
speedily decompose the weeds, and the compost will be 
ready to apply to the land in the spring. 

Pulverization of the surface soil will be brought about 
by these operations, but clay soils, generally, will be 
further benefited by deep plowing and exposure to win- 



SUB-SOILIJTG, TREKCH PLOWIJTG, TILLAGE. Gl 

ter weather and frosts. The autumn tillage, however, 
as well as that at other seasons, should conform with the 
requirements of the cropping which is to follow. 

Keeping the soil covered.— Land is not cleaned and 
tilled with the object of being left bare. Let, therefore, 
the stubble cleaning and autumn tillage be done early 
enough to admit of a catch-crop, if not a regular winter 
crop being sown. The Rothamsted experiments have 
clearly demonstrated the desirableness of this course. 
When there is no vegetation, or even when there is veg- 
etation, during excessive drainage, nitric acid is lost in 
large quantity through the drains. The remedy for this 
is to sow the newly-cleaned stubbles with clover, mustard, 
rape, winter rye, or, in mild climates, to plant cab- 
bages. The catch-crop will pay well for growing, and 
the land Avill be clean after its removal in spring. It will 
then require comparatively little labor to prepare the 
soil for the summer crop ; whereas, when all the clean- 
ing remains to be done at that period, it is so laborious 
and difficult that it is seldom well done, while the proper 
season for sowing is often lost through the work not be- 
ing accomplished in time. Nor must it be forgotten that 
keeping the soil covered is not everything ; for, as Sir 
J. B. Lawes points out, the power of vegetation to utilize 
the nitric acid in the soil is much diminished if there be 
a deficiency of available mineral constituents. This de- 
ficiency is to be prevented or made good by stubble clean- 
ing, autumn plowing, and exposure of the soil ; and fer- 
tility is to be retained by concurrent good management 
in cropping. 

Water-furrowinj?. — It is of the utmost importance in 
tlie cultivation of stiff soils, whether they be under- 
drained or not, that the field be laid up m lands or ridges 
before winter, and that the intervening furrows be well 



62 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

cleaned out. Where clay land cultivation is well under- 
stood, every field is not only plowed in narrow lands be- 
fore winter, but diagonal furrows are so taken across the 
slope as to cut over these ridge furrows at intervals of 
fifty or sixty yards ; and these cross furrows are well 
cleaned out by the spade, and so connected with an out- 
fall to the ditch as that it is impossible for any rainfall 
to pond anywhere in the field. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOME MANURE. 

General and Artificial Manure. — Farm-yard Manures: Management, 
Application, Valuation. — Green Manures. — Sheep Fold— Com- 
post. — Lime. 

We include in this chapter all the home resources of 
the farm in connection with this subject ; — Lime also, as 
being part of the system on which the maintenance of 
fertility often depends. The auxiliary and artificial 
manures now generally employed are the subject of an- 
other chapter. 

Manures supply the soil with ingredients required by 
plants which are deficient in the land either by reason of 
the exhaustion consequent on annual cropping or from 
original poverty of composition. 

All fertile soils can yield from their stores of natural 
fertility a certain amount of produce ; and rent, as Sir 
J. B. Lawes has recently pointed out, may be described 
as being paid for the right of annually removing a cer- 
tain portion of the fertilizing matter in the soil. H the 
crop of the year be left on the land, the fertility of the 



HOME MANURE. 63 

soil is increased, for some of it is derived from the air. 
If it is continually removed, however, the loss will ex- 
ceed the natural increment ; and the soil will ultimately 
fail, unless the substances removed are restored from 
some other source in the form of manure. The poorer 
the soil, the more complete mast be the restoration of the 
ingredients carried away in the crops, if fertility is to be 
maintained or increased. But even the best soils are 
made to yield larger crops with manure than they can do 
without it. 

Practice and experiment in the growth of crops have 
shown that nitrogen, phosphates, potash, and Imie, in 
assimilable form, are the substances which most strik- 
ingly benefit land ; and chemical analysis has determined 
in a measure the varying proportions in which different 
crops draw upon these and other constituents of the soil. 

Acting on this knowledge, chemists have given speci- 
fications for the preparation of manures for all the differ- 
ent crops, these schemes being professedly based on the 
composition of the crops themselves. But manuring on 
this principle would often cost more than the consequent 
increase of the crop would repay ; for it makes no allow- 
ance for natural fertility, and it makes no distinction 
between the composition of the crops grown and the 
composition of the produce sold off the farm. We know 
that soils are of very unequal fertility, that some have an 
unlimited food-supply compared with others, and that it 
is only the materials sold off the farm that the mainte- 
nance of fertility requires to be restored. More than this, 
crops differ greatly in their capability of self-supply. 
Take, as an example of the latter characteristic, the re- 
lations of wheat and clover to nitrogen. Chemical an- 
alysis shows that clover contains more nitrogen than 
wheat ; and 3^et the wheat finds its nitrogen v/ith difii- 
culty, while the clover seems to have a power of self- 
supply in this particular. Thus, in defiance of the 



64 THE SOU, OF THE FAKM. 

chemical composition of the two crops, the farmers 
practice, when he manures wlieat liberally w^ith nitrogen 
and gives little or none to clover, is justified. Economic 
manuring must supplement the plant's weakness, while 
it makes good the deficiencies of the soil. 

A general manure contains all the constituents of the 
crop, or at least all those in which soils are most deficient; 
but it by no means follows that every substance which 
may act beneficially as a manure ought to be applied. 
If a soil is deficient in one particular element, and con- 
tains all the other requisites of fertility, that one sub- 
stance may act as beneficially when applied as though it 
were a manure containing all the constituents of the 
crop. The crop in this case is thrown upon the natural 
resources of the soil for all its other elements. After a 
heavy dressing of one substance, that substance may not 
be required for several years, but some other substance 
may be needed ; and this all the more because the larger 
crops now grown will exhaust such other substances 
more rapidly than the smaller crops did previously. By 
persisting in the exclusive use of a special manure, an 
ultimate exhaustion of the soil is inevitable. Judiciously 
used, special manures are the agents which bring into 
useful activity the dormant resources of the soil ; they 
restore the proper balance between its different constitu- 
ents, and supply the excessive demand for some particular 
elements. Still, the application useful on one soil may 
be quite useless on another, and the application may be 
useful on a soil in one season and useless in another. 

A general manure may be used year after year in a 
perfectly routine manner, but where a special manure is 
employed, the importance of watching its effects and 
altering it as circumstances indicate, cannot be over- 
estimated. This forces upon us the necessity for study- 
ing the succession of manures as Avell as that of crops. 



HOME MAKURE. G5 

In many cases in which ammonia when first used proved 
beneficial, it now begins to lose its effect, and the reason 
no doubt is, that by its means the phosphates existing in 
these soils have been reduced in amount, while the am- 
monia has accumulated, so that change of manuring is 
needed. 

Artificial Manures.— Farm-yard manure is a ''gen- 
eral " manure ; whereas all artificial manures are more or 
less ''special" manures, some of the most successful of 
them being deficient in a great many of the most im- 
portant elements of plant-growth. In addition to the 
special food-supply yielded by them, they are, as a rule, 
more active and give quicker returns than farm-yard 
manure ; so that however rich the latter may be in the 
constituents of crops, it is impossible, in the present 
condition of agriculture, to do without large supplies of 
artificial manures. 

The late Mr. Pusey experimented with a view to dis- 
covering the extent to which farm-yard manure could be 
profitably used. One acre of land, without manure, 
yielded fifteen and a half tons of mangels ; a second 
acre, with thirteen tons of farm-yard manure, yielded 
twenty-seven and a half tons of mangels ; a third acre, 
with twenty-six tons of farm-yard manure, yielded twenty- 
eight and a half tons of mangels ; and a fourth acre, 
with thirteen tons of farm-yard manure and two hundred 
pounds of superphosphate, yielded thirty-six tons of 
mangels. So that while thirteen tons of farm-yard 
manure gave an increase of twelve tons in the crop, 
twenty-six tons of farm-yard manure gave only an in- 
crease of thirteen tons in the crop, and thirteen tons of 
farm-yard manure with two hundred pounds of super- 
phosphate gave an increase in the crop of twenty and a 
half tons per acre. 

The artificial manure in this case is shown to have 



66 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

acted as a powerful and economical supplement to farm- 
yard manure when the latter was used in moderate 
quantity. But there are many cases in which artificial 
manures must be solely relied on. Where land is yery 
steep and hilly, and outlying, it is often cheaper to pur- 
chase light and portable manures ; and to supplement 
their use in such cases, not with the manure-cart, but 
by feednig sheep on the field on the roots or other green- 
crop grown on the land. 

The importance of artificial fertilizers cannot be over- 
estimated in regard to the maintenance of fertility on 
poor lands. Many of them have acquired also an ad- 
ditional value on account of their special character, and 
their special action on the quality of various crops grown 
for industrial purposes, as sugar-beet, flax, etc. 

The action of manures is not, however, fully explained 
by their affording a direct supply of plant food ; for many 
of them operate indirectly to feed crops by their chemical 
effects upon the soil. Thus, farm-yard manure, in under- 
going decomposition yields a supply of carbonic acid, 
which may act on the mineral constituents and liberate 
their elements. Many mineral manures also, common 
salt, gypsum, and other saline matters, may react on the 
soil, converting potash and magnesia, for instance, into 
soluble forms, and thus giving the same result as would 
follow an immediate use of the last-named substances. 

Again, certain manures which are used in large doses 
influence the fertility of the soil by amending its texture, 
or otherwise modifying its physical characters — as we have 
already seen in the case of marling and mixing of soils. 
Farm -yard manure is of great benefit in this respect, both 
on heavy clays and on light sandy soils ; for in the one 
case it diminishes tenacity, and in the other it lessens 
porosity and helps to retain moisture. 

Farm-yard manure is a mixture of the dung and urine 



HOME MAKURE. 67 

of farm animals with tlie straw and other matters used 
as litter. It is regarded as the typical manure, both be- 
cause it is a ^'general" manure, and on account of its 
influence on the texture and general character of the soil 
to which it is applied. Still it is not a perfect manure. 
It contains, no doubt, all the elements of plant-growth; 
but these are not always present in the best proportions. 
To prevent a deficiency of one element, it has to be em- 
ployed in such large quantities as to furnish other ele- 
ments more or less in excess of what is actually required 
by the crop. Its great bulk also makes it extremely ex- 
pensive to handle. It is, moreover, exceptionally hable 
to waste, and it yields its results very slowly. 

In a ton of ordinary farm-yard manure there is con- 
tained about thirteen pounds of nitrogen, ten and a-half 
pounds of potash, and ten and a-half pounds of phos- 
phoric acid. The per centages are of course, variable. 
Mr. Warington, in the " Chemistry of the Farm,"* puts 
the amount at nine to fifteen pounds of nitrogen, nine to 
fifteen pounds of potash, and four to nine pounds of 
phosphoric acid. The conditions affecting the composi- 
tion and quality of the manure are — (1) the kind and 
condition of animal producing it; (2) the food of the 
animal ; (3) the kind and quantity of litter used ; and (4) 
the care bestowed upon its after-management. 

1. The Animal. — The quality of the manure varies, 
not only with the class of animal — horse, cow, sheep, pig, 
etc. — which produces it, but with the ago and character 
of the animal. An adult animal takes comparatively 
little of the nitrogenous and ash elements from the food, 
because what it chiefly requires is the carbonaceous matter 
to keep up respiration and to form fat. A young and 
growing animal has more varied wants to supply in the 
formation of both bone and muscle, and therefore it re- 

* Published by Orange Judd & Co. 



68 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

quires far more of the nitrogenous and ash elements in 
its food to accomjolish this growth, in addition to what 
is necessary to sustain tiie vital system and to lay on fat. 
The same is more or less true of breeding animals, and of 
animals producing milk and wool. Unless both these 
and the young growing animals are fed on food rich in 
nitrogenous and ash elements, the manure from them 
must be comparatively poor. In the case of the mature 
animal, however, the manure is not materially less fertil- 
izing than the original food. 

2. The Food. — More important even than the kind of 
animals as affecting the quality of the manure, is the food 
used in feeding them. There is a certain amount of waste 
tissue thrown off by the animal which goes into the 
manure, but, speaking generally, the excrement represents 
that portion of the food which is not used by the animal. 
The extent to which the constitutents of the food are 
made use of by the animal will depend on the digestibili- 
ty of the feeding substance, and on the assimilative power 
of the animal for the food in question. Oil-cakes yield 
the richest manure ; then come beans, peas, malt-dust, 
bran, clover hay, cereal grain, meadow hay, roots, and 
straw, in the order named. 

3. Tlie Litter is an imj^ortant part of farm-yard ma- 
nure, not only on account of the manure matters con- 
tained in it, which are considerable, but also as affecting 
the texture and consequent fermentation of the manure. 
The quantity of litter should be sufficient to absorb and 
retain the greater part of the liquid manure, and the sur- 
plus, if any, should be pumped up at intervals and dis- 
tributed over the manure so as to keep the whole in a 
proper state of moisture. If the litter is deficient, the 
manure becomes too moist, and the most vahiable part 
drains off, unless means are taken to collect it in the 
liquid tank. Whether the manure is too moist or too 
dry, fermentation is equally checked ; in the former case 



HOME MAKUr.E. 69 

by tlie exclusion of air, and in the latter case by the want 
of moisture. 

Manai?cmcnt of Farm Manure. — Air and moisture are 
both essential to the proj)er fermentation of manure. If 
it is too dry, it burns, gets "fire-fanged," white and mil- 
dewed; and the high temperature of the manure pro- 
motes the formation of carbonate of ammonia, which is 
volatile and easily escapes into the air. This occurs 
when the temperature exceeds eighty degrees F. But 
when the manure is kept moist and the temperature low, 
fermentation stops with the formation of organic acids 
which take up ammonia. The salts thus formed are 
present in the black decomposed dung, and the ammonia 
in them is in a soluble form, but not volatile. A strong 
smell arising from the manure makes it evident that a 
wasteful fermentation is going on. But this fermentation 
is easily controlled. A quick fermentation will be in- 
duced by placing the manure lightly in heaps so as to 
allow the air to get at it; a slower fermentation, by tread- 
ing the manure down firmlj^, as in carting over it; and a 
cool fermentation by keeping the heap moderately moist. 
Liquid manure should be used either when it is necessary 
to moisten the heap, so as to check excessive fermen- 
tation, or, unless it be very dilute, just before carting 
the heap on to the land. 

The waste of farm-yard manure may arise from two 
causes— (1) from excessive supj)lies of water, as rain falling 
on and washing it; or (2) from volatilization, or over- 
heating, and the consequent escape of ammonia. 

The waste by water is generally recognized, but not 
sufficiently guarded against; and as a consequence the 
manure is wasted by rains, soakings, and drainage, which 
carry off the very essence of it. Where no means are 
taken to preserve or retain this portion, the loss under 
ordinary circumstancos amounts to from one-third to 



70 THE SOIL OF THE EAKM. 

one-half of the whole value of the manure. The soluble 
nitrates are washed away by the rain, and the loss of 
course is greatest in rotten manure, which contains a 
great deal of its nitrogen in a soluble condition. 

The loss by volatilization is not so great. Where the 
manure is kept in a proper condition as to temperature 
and moisture, little ammonia will escape into the air so 
long as the manure is not disturbed by turning, as during 
fermentation organic acids are produced in such abundance 
as to combine with the greater part of the ammonia, and 
form soluble salts of ammonia. 

Manure made under cover is preserved from waste by 
rainfall and drainage; but there is danger of it becoming 
too dry if the litter is abundant, unless it is moistened at 
intervals. To feed cattle in covered yards, taking care to 
spread the litter evenly, and not to supply more than is 
sufficient to keep them dry, is a great economy so far as 
their manure is concerned. Box-fed manure and manure 
from roofed yards have been proved often enough to be 
greatly superior to that which is made in yards which 
receive, not only the rainfall proper to their own area, but 
that of adjoining roofs unprovided with eaves and down- 
spouts for its removal. 

When manure heaps are formed, a thick layer of dry soil, 
ditch cleanings, vegetable refuse, or peat should be laid 
down for a bottoming, and the earth or other admixture 
should be interstratified in layers with the manure 
throughout, so as to absorb any liquid which may tend to 
escape from it; and the whole should also be topped with 
a firm beaten layer of earth in order to exclude the rain. 
Dry peat is an excellent substance for mixing with manure, 
as it not only absorbs the liquid portions of it, but 
somewhat fixes the ammonia. A good peat will absorb 
about two per cent, of ammomia, and when dry will still 
retain from one to one and one-half per cent., or nearly 



n03IE MANUEE. 71 

twice as much as would be yielded by the whole nitrogen 
of an equal weight of farm -yard manure. 

Gypsum, charcoal, and lime are sometimes added to 
manure heaps with the view of fixing their ammonia; but 
where the management of the manure is otherwise good, 
these are not much required. Chalk and lime are found 
to have a very good effect in preventing escape of am- 
monia from farm-yard manure, provided it is fresh ma- 
nure. Applied to rotten manure, caustic lime causes a 
great loss of ammonia. 

As far as possible the formation of field manure-heaps 
is to be avoided; but if they must be formed, the practice 
of turning the manure should be avoided. The labor of 
doing so, is mostly lost, and much manure is wasted. It 
is best in every sense to cart the manure direct from the 
yards upon the land and spread it at once. The question 
of immediate plowing in, or covering it, is of less 
consequence than has generally been imagined; but on 
light soils the practice of immediate plowing under is 
advisable. 

We must add, as a somewhat disheartening comment 
upon the whole of these directions and suggestions, the 
conclusions of the most experienced agricultural chemist 
of the day. 

*^ I am bound to confess," says Sir J. B. Lawcs, '' that 
I am just as helpless in regard to the management or im- 
provement of manure as the most old-fashioned farmer. 
It is of no use fixing ammonia where there is hardly any 
to fix. It costs nothing to look at the dung with the idea 
of doing something to it; but you certainly cannot touch 
it without going to some considerable expense. I, for 
my part, am content, therefore, to let it alone. All labor 
expended on dung adds certainly to the cost, but it does 
not add with the same certainty to its value. 

" As I grow a good many mangels," he goes on to sny, 
*^ I apply the greater part of the farm-yard manure to 



72 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

this crop, my practice being to open out the furrow and 
apply about twenty tons per acre, then, after earthing up 
the furrows, I proceed to drill the seed upon the top. If 
I did not grow turnips, I should apply the dung in au- 
tumn to clover or grass. This, of course, would involve 
exposure to the atmosphere, but I should not fear much 
loss on this account, or, at all events, I do not think 
there would be more by this process than by any othei-." 

Application of Farm Manure. — If farm manure is 
applied m autumn, there need be no fear of loss from or- 
dinary rains, on stiff land at least. The time of year, 
however, as well as the mode of application which may 
be best, must depend on what crop it is to benefit most, 
and on the course of cropping. 

For potatoes, beans, turnips, and other fallow crops, 
the dung may be pu^ on the stubbles without much risk 
of loss before they are broken up; or it may be applied in 
the manner already described by Sir J. B. Lawes for his 
mangel crops, at the time of planting or sowing. Where 
the land is to be worked on the flat, the former practice 
is preferable, provided the dung is in stock early enough. 
In England potatoes are never grown Avithout manure ; 
mangels and beans seldom are either; but turnips are fre- 
quently grown with the aid of artificial manures only, the 
land m this case benefitiug by the sheep-fold afterwards. 
For potatoes, mangels, and beans, fifteen to twenty tons 
of dung are usually applied per acre; and in most cases 
this is supplemented with two, three, or even five hundred 
pounds of light manures. For turnips about ten tons of 
dung and the above quantities of auxiliary manures are 
reckoned sufficient. 

For the wheat crop, the manure is applied on the clover 
lea before plowing. Some prefer to manure the clover be- 
fore the first cutting, others between the first and second 
cutting; and others again not until immediately before 



HOME MANURE. 73 

the clover lea is broken up. The quantity applied is 
usually from ten to twelve tons per acre. 

On meadows aud grass lands, autumn manuring is 
best, but it is not desirable to use fresh and unrotted 
dung in this case, and it is best applied in the form of 
compost. From ten to fifteen cart-loads per acre maybe 
given on grass land, according to the length of time it is 
intended to last. 

The old plan of bestowing all the manure for a rotation 
on one crop is now being less followed. Although some 
crops benefit more by an application of dung than others, 
it is deemed better to use it oftener, and to give less of it 
at once ; and as only a given amount can be produced for 
each acre, the smaller dressing has to be suj^plemented 
with artificial manures. 

Green Manures.— This is the term given to crops 
which are grown for the purpose of being plowed in on 
the land which produced them. This was once a com- 
mon practice, but the availability of commercial fer- 
tilizers, combined with the high prices obtainable for beef 
and mutton, has rendered the farmer more careless than 
he once was of the slower and more natural methods of 
maintaining or increasing fertility. 

By plowing in a green crop, the surface soil is enriched 
not only by the elements which the crop derived from 
the air, but also by mineral and vegetable matters which 
were brought up by it from the subsoil. The green crop 
thus acts the part of a gatherer of plant food, and makes 
it easier for any crop sown after this green-manuring to 
get its supplies from the decomposing vegetation present 
in the soil. 

The plants best adapted for green-manuring, are those 
which derive their support principally from the air, 
which grow rapidly, which cover the ground well, and 
4 



74 TnE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

whose roots penetrate deep, and ramify extensively 
throughout the soil. 

Among the various plants grown for green-manuring 
are white mustard, buckwheat, rye, rape, vetches, Tri- 
folium incarnatu7n, and common clover. In many coun- 
tries spurry, borage, and white lupin, are also largely 
grown for the same purj)ose. Many of these crops, when 
plowed in green, are, weight for weight, almost as good 
as farm-yard manure, containing large quantities of ni- 
trogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. The great weight 
of decomj^osable vegetable matter contained in the root 
as well as the leaf of a crop, grown for being plowed in 
as manure, is to be considered in estimating its effect as a 
fertilizer. There can be no doubt that to this esjDCcially 
is due the fertihzing effect of a clover stubble when 
plowed in as a preparation for the following wheat crop. 

Eight to twelve tons per acre may be grown of any of 
the crops w^e have named with the aid of guano. White 
mustard comes to maturity in six or eight weeks, and 
two or three crops of it might be grown on the same land 
in a single season, after an early summer crop of peas and 
l^otatoes. Only a light plowhig is needed, and less than 
a peck of mustard-seed will seed an acre, at a trifling 
cost. Some of the other crops are not much less rapid 
growers, and are also inexpensive to cultivate. 

Green-manuring produces the greatest effect on light 
sandy soils in dry climates ; but it is profitably practised 
also on heavy soils. The green crop should, if possible, 
be plowed in just before the time of flowering, or at all 
events after it has arrived at considerable growth. The 
season of the year for plowing in must depend upon the 
nature of the crop ; but the operation is best performed 
in the heat of summer, as the conditions for rapid decom- 
position are then actively present, after the plants are 
turned in. To cover them effectually, they require to be 
first heavily rolled. A skim coulter should be used in 



HOME MAKURE. 75 

the plow that is employed, and the plowing should be 
deep enough to retain moisture about the decaying 
plants. 

The Shcepfold. — In districts where bare summer fal- 
lows are adopted, the practice of folding is carried on very 
differently from where green crop cultivation prevails. 
The method there is to bring the flock from the pasture, 
where it is fed by day, and fold it upon a fallow by night. 
When one fold is sufficiently manured, another one is en- 
closed, the hurdles being shifted daily. 

The flock under this system is a mere working machine, 
whose chief purpose was that of a manure carrier. It is 
probable that more, iu mutton and wool, is lost in this 
way than is gained in manure. Nor is that the only ob- 
jection to this system. It is made the means of enrich- 
ing one part of the farm at the expense of another ; as 
Mr. Bake well put it, it robs Peter to pay Paul. The 
grass land is starved to feed the arable. This is the com- 
mon i^ractice in the neighborhood of the Sussex downs, 
where farms include a stretch of the down land as part 
of their area. 

Another method is to confine the flock altogether on 
the fallows, and feed with tares, clover, or other forage 
plant brought to it. The sheep are better off under this 
system ; but it incurs a great deal of labor in cutting and 
carting forage ; and it starves the land which grew the 
crop. Folding is now more generally practised on land 
under roots or green crop, where the sheep feed at their 
ease, and manure the ground at the same time. 

To eat off a crop with sheep is theoretically less en- 
riching than to plow it in green; and if the soil is poor, 
thin, sandy, and deficient in organic matter, plowing in 
green crops will be a very advantageous method of im- 
proving it. But even on such soils, when mutton or 
wool is an object, it may be better to feed off the crop, 



76 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

and enrich the ground by consuming quantities of cake 
or corn along with it. 

On light soils, sheep-folding is in many cases universal 
as a preparation for wheat; and it is the chief dependence 
in all districts where the quantity of farm-yard manure is 
insufficient. Poor clay may likewise be speedily rendered 
fertile by heavily folding in summer time and dry weather 
with sheep fed on cake, grain, and hay, in addition to 
vetches, cabbages, or other green crop brought to them. 
The practice is often as advantageously followed on grass 
land as on arable. On wet, undrained land, and stiff 
clays, folding is injurious, unless it is done in very dry 
weather. 

An acre of good clover may feed more than one hun- 
dred sheep one week ; and an acre of turnips may feed 
two hundred and forty sheep for the same period. Say 
that a sheep consumes, and wastes together, twenty- 
eight pounds of roots daily. Then eighty sheep will con- 
sume one ton daily ; and two hundred and forty sheep 
will feed off a crop of twenty-one tons in a week. 

Composts are mixtures of fertilizing substances, which, 
being allowed to undergo chemical changes for a con- 
siderable time in heaps, become more valuable than they 
could have been if applied separately. Peat, road-scrap- 
ings, clearings of ditches, weeds, leaves, lime and farm- 
yard manures, are the substances used to form composts. 

Since the introduction of artificial and light manures, 
the mixing of heavy materials, earth and lime, etc., 
with other manuring substances seldom pays for the 
labor expended. 

On the other hand, many of the artificial manures are 
best applied to the soil in the form of compost, i.e., 
mixed with some bulky material of less value in order to 
its more even distribution. 



HOME MAiq-URE. 77 

Lime. — Quick or burnt lime may be said to exert a 
three-fold influence as a fertilizer. It is a direct source 
of plant food ; it unlocks and renders available the stores 
of inert food, both mineral and organic, contained in the 
soil ; and it ameliorates the texture of cla3^s. 

As all crops require a certain amount of lime, in order 
to carry on and perfect their growth, a soil deficient in 
this mineral substance can never be a very productive 
one, until the deficiency is made good. 

It is in its second character, perhaps, that lime does 
its most important work. It decomposes all kinds of 
vegetable matter in the soil and corrects any acidity due 
to the presence of organic acids. It assists to decompose 
certain salts whose bases contribute to the food of plants, 
and it acts in facilitating nitrification. In all these re- 
spects it may be said to digest and prepare general plant- 
food, though it does not in itself furnish more than one 
of the ingredients which plants require from the soil. It 
also helps to retain certain soluble manures in the soil, 
and it economizes the use of potash ; certain crops, such 
as roots and clover, where potash is not abundant in the 
soil, having to some extent the power of utilizing lime in 
its place. When we add that lime improves the quality 
of grain, grasses, and other crops, the finer grasses on 
certain lands refusing to grow until the land has been 
limed; that it is the only known cure for ^*^ finger and 
toe" in turnips; that it hastens the maturity of crops; 
and that it destroys insects, and checks the growth of 
moss and weeds in the soil — it will be seen how various 
and important is the work it performs. 

The effect of lime on the mechanical texture of many 
soils is also great. It pulverizes and lightens strong 
soils, at once improving their drainage and rendering 
them easier tilled. On peaty soils it reduces the excess 
of organic matter. It also improves the texture of light 
soils, provided an overdose is not applied, even when 



78 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

they contain but little vegetable matter; the avidity of 
the lime for moisture, added to the chemical changes 
brought about by it, having the effect of increasing their 
absorptive and retentive powers in a considerable degree. 

The quantity of lime applied need not be large, but 
may vary, according to circumstances, from 0.05 to .5 
per cent., by weight, of the cultivated soil. On a soil 
ten inches deep an application of one ton per acre would 
represent a dressing of 0.05 per cent.; and ten tons per 
acre will equal .5 per cent. In actual practice more 
than five or six tons per acre is seldom applied. This 
quantity may be required for strong land, or for land 
containing much organic matter in an inert state; but 
for light land with little vegetable matter, occasional 
dressings of one to two tons per acre will, in most cases, 
be found sufficient. 

A deep soil requires a heavier dressing of lime than a 
shallow soil; and deep tillage will call for larger applica- 
tions than where the cultivation is shallower. A sandy 
soil requires less lime than a heavy clay; and soils poor 
m vegetable matter will need smaller dressings of lime 
than soils that are rich in organic matter. A small 
quantity of lime will have greater effect on drained lands 
than a larger dose on wet and undrained land. Green 
crops will generally benefit more by lime than corn crops. 

There are few soils in which some lime is not already 
present; but the smaller this quantity, the better, as a 
rule, will the soil pay for an artificial application. The 
form in which the lime exists m the soil, is, however, im- 
portant. If in the form of silicate, or even gypsum, it 
will pay better to add lime to the soil, than if the lime 
present had existed as carbonate. It will also pay better 
to apply lime to land that has never been limed, than to 
land where it has been previously applied. The quantity 
of lime necessary, as well as the kind of lime that should 
be added, will thus be much influenced by the composi- 



HOME MANURE. 79 

tion and texture of the soil. Small dressings at frequent 
intervals are now the rule. Instead of applying four to 
eight tons per acre once in fifteen or nineteen years, as 
formerly, it is considered more economical, on land 
which has been previously limed, to apply it every six or 
eight years in quantities not exceeding one to two tons 
per acre. 

Where the opposite course is adopted there is consider- 
able waste and a gradually diminishing effect. A certain 
quantity of the lime is dissolved and removed by drainage 
waters, and the remainder in a few years sinks below the 
cultivated depth ; or chemical changes take place which 
render it effete. On arable land the plow for a season 
or two brings it back to the surface; but after a time it 
gets beyond the depth of the plow, and is as much lost 
as if the land had not been cultivated. This strong ten- 
dency of lime to sink into the subsoils ought to teach us, 
when liming land, not to plow the lime in, but to keep it 
as near the surface as possible. The land should be 
plowed first, then the lime spread, and simi3ly harrowed 
in. 

Evidence recently supplied shows that the effect of 
lime is most durable upon pastures that are grazed : it 
lasts longer upon good than upon bad land; and longer 
upon clays and heavy loams than upon light land. On 
the same authority we are told that a full dressing of 
lime endures frome seven to thirty years. This is not 
very definite, but with the liability to so many conflicting 
influences, these extreme differences are easily accounted 
for. 

On arable land the lime should be applied during tlie 
fallow year. It matters little whether this is done in au- 
tumn or in early spring. Convenience of carting, and 
opportunity for getting the lime on the land will be the 
chief guides here. The lime slakes best and quickest 
when laid down in small heaps and slightly covered with 



80 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

fine soil. This saves re-filling and re-carting. If the 
heaps are j)ut clown ten yards apart each way, there will be 
forty-eight or forty-nine heaps per acre; and fifty-pound 
heaps at that rate Avould give a dressing of twenty-four 
hundred pounds per acre. If the heaps are placed five 
by five yards aj^art, the dressing will be four times as 
much, or nine thousand six hundred pounds per acre. 

Except on old mossy land, lime is best applied to grass 
land in the form of compost; and the application should 
be made in early winter, so that the lime may work into 
the vegetable surface before spring growth commences. 
The lime may be previously slaked, or a compost formed, 
in a corner of the field. It should not be put out on the 
land in small heaps, as in the case of arable land, but 
spread direct from the cart. 

Limestone and Lime. — Within a few years the extra- 
ordinary claim has been made, that finely-ground lime- 
stone was not only of equal value with, but was actually 
superior as a fertilizer to lime. This assertion by dealers 
in ground limestone, and by those who had grinding ma- 
chinery for sale, was apparently sustained by the certifi- 
cates of persons who claimed to have made comparative 
trials of limestone and lime. This newly discovered 
value of limestone, being contrary to all previous exj)eri- 
ence, and directly opposed to the known chemical proper- 
ties of the two forms of lime, was the subject of numer- 
ous inquiries by the readers of the ^'American Agricultur- 
alist," to which the editors of that journal made the 
following reply : 

Limestone is a most widely distributed mineral, one of 
its purest forms being known as marble, and is found 
almost all over the United States of various qualities and 
degrees of purity. It is a carbonate of lime, that is, lime 
combined with carbonic acid. If a fragment of limestone 
is placed in a glass of water, and a little strong acid is 



HOME MANURE. 81 

added, the carbonic acid is set free, and we see it pass off 
as bubbles rising through the water. Limestone is so 
slightly dissolved by water that it is tasteless. It takes 
one thousand six hundred parts of water to dissolve one 
part of limestone. Water, in which there is much car- 
bonic acid, dissolves a considerable amount of carbonate 
of lime. If a small piece of limestone be kept at a strong 
red heat for some hours, it will be only about half as 
heavy as the original stone. What has it lost in the 
burning? If tested with acid, as before, no bubbles of 
gas will be given off. The heat has driven out all the 
carbonic acid; it is no longer a carbonate of lime, but 
simply lime (an oxide of the metal calcium, or calcic 
oxide, as the chemists have it). Limestone burned in 
kilns produces lime, often called quick-lime. If a lump 
of freshly burned lime have water gradually put upon it, 
it soon becomes hot; in a little while it swells up, cracks, 
and falls into a very white powder; though much water 
has been added, the powder is quite dry. The water has 
united with the lime, making a solid, caustic or slaked 
lime. Lime exposed takes up moisture from the air, and 
we have air-slaked lime. Slaked lime with enough water 
forms whitewash, or *^milk of lime." On standing, the 
greater part of the lime will settle, leaving clear lime- 
water — a saturated solution of lime; that is, the water 
has taken up all it can dissolve, for at ordinary tempera- 
ture it requires several hundred parts of water to dissolve 
one part of quick-lime. If clear lime-w^ater be j^laced in 
a glass, and with a straw or pipe-stem the breath be 
forced into it, the lime-water will soon become cloudy, 
and then milky. Set the glass aside, and a fine white 
powder will settle at the bottom, leaving the water clear 
above. The breath contains carbonic acid; this, when 
forced into the lime water, unites with the lime, forming 
carbonate, the same as unburned limestone, which, being 
little soluble, separates as a white powder. If we con- 



82 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

tinue to breathe into the lime-water after it has become 
milky, it will soon become perfectly clear as at the start. 
The continued breathing supplies more carbonic acid 
than is needed to convert the lime into an insoluble car- 
bonate; the excess of carbonic acid in the water re- 
dissolves the carbonate. Heating this solution drives off 
the excess of carbonic acid, and the carbonate of lime 
will be deposited again. Carbonic acid is always present 
in the atmosphere, and when slaked lime is long ex- 
posed, it takes up this acid and slowly becomes carbonate 
of lime. 

Why wc use Quick-Lime upon the Land. — All culti- 
vated plants contain lime in their ashes, and it is con- 
sidered necessary to their proper growth. But soils 
generally contain enough lime for the use of the plants, 
and we apply it for its action upon the other constituents 
of the soil. Lime acts upon and greatly aids the decom- 
position of organic matter in the soil. It is thought to 
neutralize the organic acids contained in what are called 
^'^ sour soils." In a complicated manner it aids in the 
fixing of ammonia. It also acts upon the inorganic or 
mineral constituents of the soil, and aids in converting 
them into forms in which they can be taken up by the 
plants, especially in liberating potash from its combina- 
tions. The effect of lime upon the mechanical condition 
of the soil is an important feature. Upon heavy clay 
soils its effect is most marked; the particles lose their ad- 
hesiveness, and allow air and water to enter. These are 
the leading effects that follow the use of lime. In view 
of the claims made for ground, unburned limestone, it 
is an important question how far it can produce the 
above effects. That the unburned limestone will supply 
the demands of the plant for lime, that it may slowly 
neutralize organic acids, and help the mechanical texture 
of the soil seems very probable. But that it will perform 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 83 

one of the most important offices, the decomposition of 
organic matter m the soil, and convert that mto plant 
food seems improbable, because the ability of lime to do 
this depends in a great measure upon its avidity for car- 
bonic acid, while limestone being already a carbonate, 
has no need of more. That limestone can not produce 
all the effects of lime is shown by the well-known fact 
that soils underlaid by limestone, and naturally contain- 
ing a large proportion of finely divided carbonate of lime, 
are as much benefited by the use of quick-lime as are soils 
dcfieient in iimeatone. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 

Guano : Statistics.— Prices.— Valuation.— Application.— Bones : Bone- 
dust.— Bone-ash.— Superphosphate.-Ground phosphate. — Nitro- 
genous Manures : Nitrate of soda. -Sulphate of ammonia.— Alka- 
line Manures: Potash.— Kainit,— Gypsum.— Common salt.— Ashes. 
—Other Manures : Soot.— Rape-dust. —Fish refuse.— Blood.— Sea- 
weed.— Sewas:e.— Liquid manure. — Application of Manures: 
Top-dressinf?.— Valufi of manures from foods. 

Guano.— The constituents of value in guano are (1) 
ammonia and ammonia-formmg compounds ; (2) soluble 
and insoluble phosphates ; and (3) alkaline salts. The 
approximate value of any sample can be arrived at by 
multiplying the commercial values of these materials by 
the percentage found of each ingredient. The values of 
ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash, vary according to 
the source which supplies them. 

Analyses ought always to be made before purchasing; 
and if there be reason to doubt the guarantee of the man- 
ufacturer, a private analysis can be made afterwards. 



84 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

Without the knowledge of its composition thus acquired, 
the best Peruvian guano, rich in ammonia, might be ex- 
travagantly employed upon soils that would be almost 
equally benefited by the cheaper qualities, of which the 
phosphates are the chief fertilizing ingredients. Upon 
light soils, especially, ammoniacal guano may be used 
wastefuUy, owing to the little obstruction such soils pre- 
sent to the escape of its volatile and soluble portions. 
The full benefit of these will be better secured in the 
stronger soils, or in composts prepared with the view of 
their absorption and retention. In such mixtures guano 
is used most advantageously. Of itself alone, it may 
furnish all the ingredients required by the plants; but its 
activity and evanescence need to be checked ; and on ac- 
count of its caustic quality, care should be taken that it 
be not brought in direct contact with the seed. 

The quantity of best guano that should be used per 
acre is generally rated at from thi*ee to five hundred 
pounds, and it should be applied in damp weather so that 
the rains may gradually diffuse it equally through the 
soil. No definite rules, however, can be given as to what 
soil will be most benefited by guano, or as to the neces- 
sary quantity to be employed. If used in the compost 
form it should be mixed, previous to sowing, with four 
times its weight of good soil; which will avert the danger 
of injury to the seed and effect a more equal distribution 
of the manure. For grasses and clovers, ten to fifteen 
hundred pounds of such a mixture should be sown broad- 
cast in the early spring. This will be equivalent to from 
two three hundred pounds of the guano. Guano is too 
soluble to be applied with profit in autumn. 

On corn crops no manure has a more powerful effect 
than guano. It is used as a top-dressing in spring at the 
rate of three to four hundred pounds per acre. The 
stronger the land is, the larger the quantity that can be 
applied with profit. 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIOIS^AL MANURES. 85 

For turnip and other root crops, as much as three to 
five hundred pounds per acre of Peruvian guano are often 
beneficially used on strong land without other manure. 
Peruvian guano is too stimulating when applied in large 
quantities to late sown turnips, promoting an excessive 
luxuriance of leaf, and preventing the formation of bulb. 
In such cases, phosphatic manures will yield better crops 
at less expense. It is applied generally to the root crops 
by sowing broadcast at their seed-time. 

Beans and potatoes also benefit by guano, but on most 
soils it does not possess the power of sustaining the 
healthy growth of these plants without something else in 
addition. 

Bones owe their value as a fertilizer partly to the phos- 
phoric acid which they contain, and in a less degree to 
tlie combined nitrogenous matter which they contain. 
They are used as manures either in the form of (1) bone- 
dust, (2) as bone-ash, or (3) after treatment with sulphuric 
acid. 

(1.) Bone dust, or bone-meal as it is sometimes term- 
ed, is obtained by crushing or grinding the bones to a 
kind of coarse powder. The finer the state of division, 
the more rapid is the action of the manure, and the 
coarser the particles, the slower its effect. 

Steaming the bones previous to grinding them, dissolves 
out about two-thirds of the gelatine, and occasions a loss 
of nitrogen ; but they are then easily reduced to a very 
fine powder, and are thus rendered more effective as a 
manure. 

When bone-dust is prepared from bones that have not 
been steamed, it is best applied mixed with earth, or some 
other substance, and fermented. Wet sand, sawdust, 
stable-droppmgs, or any substance that will induce fer- 
mentation, may be usefully employed for this purpose. 



86 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

These, mixed witli tlie bones, in the proportion of three 
to one, and moistened with the drainings from the cattle- 
yards, will furnish a highly fertilizing manure. The heap 
requires to be made up in a covered shed, and having 
been sufficiently moistened, is left to ferment. The mix- 
ture is applied to grass land at the rate of thirty or forty 
bushels per acre ; and to arable land at the rate of twenty 
or twenty-five bushels per acre. 

As a general rule, bone manures are better adapted for 
the lighter class of soils than for stiff land. On some soils 
their use has been attended with surprising effect ; but on 
others, such as clay soils, for example, as may be already 
naturally rich in phosphates, the application of bones is 
of comparatively little benefit. 

(2.) Bone-ash is the residue left afterburning bones. 
It consists of the earthy matter of the bone, and amounts 
to about sixty-six per-cent. of the original weight. It is 
chiefly obtained from South America, where large herds 
of cattle are slaughtered, and the tallow melted from the 
carcass, in which operation the bones of the animal are 
used as fuel, thus forming the bone-ash of commerce. 
The essential differences between crushed bones, dissolved 
bones, and bone-ash, are that while the first contains phos- 
phate of lime and nitrogen, the second contains in addition 
soluble phosphate, and the third has been dej)rived of its 
nitrogen by burning. The bone-ash is chiefly used in the 
manufacture of superphosphate of lime, which only differs 
from dissolved bones in that it contains no gelatine or 
animal matter yielding nitrogen. 

(3. ) Superphosphate. — By dissolving bones in sulphuric 
acid they arc rendered more available for the first crop, 
and a smaller application suffices at any one time. 

The bones arc first ground to powder, and then treated 
with sulphuric acid of specific gravity 1.66. A sufficient 
quantity of sulphuric acid is added to every ton of bone- 



AUXILIARY AKD EXCEPTIOJN^AL MANURES. 87 

dust, and thoroughly incorporated. In the pasty condi- 
tion to which the sulphuric acid reduces the bones, it is 
quite impossible to apply it either by hand or drill ; wood- 
ashes, peat-ashes, or even dry soil may be used to prepare 
them for sowing; but quick-lime, or powdered chalk, 
must not be mixed with the dissolved bones for the pur- 
pose of drying, as the lime would restore them to their 
comparatively insoluble condition. 

By dissolving bones their effect on the turnip crop is 
greatly increased. Superphosphate is applied at the rate of 
four to five hundred pounds per acre, when used by itself. 

Superphosphate is also prepared by treating bone-ash 
and coprolite or mineral phosphate with sulphuric acid. 

The difference between the effects produced by animal 
phosphate and mineral phosphate is virtually nothing, 
but the difference in price is very considerable. 

The farmer may manufacture his own superphosphate. 
An iron tan]^ or a strong wooden vat is used in preparing 
it. The bone-ash or coprolite powder to be dissolved is 
put into the tank, and over it is poured one-fourth its 
weight of water. Afterwards stir and mix well ; then add 
sulphuric acid equal to about half the weight of bone-ash, 
or more of mineral phosphate, and again stir and mix 
thoroughly. The finer the division of the ground phos- 
phate the more rapid and effectual is the process. If am- 
monia is wanted in the subsequent manure, it can be sup- 
plied by an addition of sulphate of ammonia. After re- 
moving the superphosphate from the tank, if it is placed 
in a heap under cover and allowed to remain for a suffi- 
cient time, the moisture will evaporate by the heat of the 
mass. It will lose in weight according to the time it re- 
mains in the heap, but there will be an increase in the 
percentage of soluble j^hosphate. The same substances 
may be used for drying the superphosphate, however, as 
have been recommended for drying dissolved bones. 



88 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

The soluble phosphoric acid in siiperi3liosphate on com- 
ing in contact with lime in the soil is rapidly conyerted 
into an insoluble form, and consequently it does not rap- 
idly penetrate the soil. This change takes place with 
certainty in a soil which contains much calcareous matter. 
A few hours thus often suffices to modify the easy solu- 
bility of the manure ; and the more rapid the change is 
brought about the more necessary it becomes to have the 
superphosphate in as fine a state of division as possible, 
and well mixed with the soil. The extreme state of di- 
vision in which, however, this process leaves it, makes 
it far more soluble in the carbonic acid rain-water than 
the most finely divided bones or coprolites which had been 
reduced by mechanical means ; and the efficiency of the 
manure is thus not materially impaired. 

It is especially suited as a manure for the turnii^ crop. 
If used alone, as much as four or five hundred joounds 
per acre may be applied with good effect ; but on most 
soils it is advisable to use a smaller quantity ; and for 
mangel v/urzels and potatoes it is best applied mixed with 
one hundred pounds of sulphate of ammonia and two 
hundred pounds of potash salts. For the potato crop, 
from four to six hundred pounds of superphosphate may 
be used, in addition to farm-yard manure, or ammonia 
and potash salts. As a mangel manure, superphosphate 
is considerably less effective than guano. On barley it 
has been largely used as a top-dressing of late years at the 
rate of about three hundred pounds per acre. The oat 
crop, too, as grown in the fen districts, receives a dressing 
of superphosphate with great advantage during the spring. 
A greater bulk of both grain and straw has thereby been 
produced, and an earlier harvest is obtained. 

Ground Phosphate. — Its value as a fertilizer is derived 
from the phosphate of lime of which the mineral is partly 
composed. Coprolites, as to seventy to eighty per cent. 



AUXILIARY AlsJy EXCEPTIOiq-AL MAKURES. 89 

of their substance, aro a mixed pliospliatc and carbonate 
of lime. 

Although there seems to be considerable difference in 
the results obtained by difccrent experiments, the general 
conclusion seems to be that the usual difference in the 
effects produced by soluble and insoluble phosphates is 
much diminished when the latter are reduced to very fine 
powder and applied in very large quantities. The pow- 
dered phosphate is cheaper than the manufactured ma- 
nure. But there can be no doubt that an increased use 
of ground coprolites would result in increasing their cost 
in the market, and the advantage would thus to some ex- 
tent be lost. 

After fine grinding, the coprolite powder may be mixed 
with farm-yard manure, either under the cattle or else in 
the dung heap, and the carbonic acid formed by the fer- 
mentation of the dung tends to the solubility of the 
mineral phosphates by actual superphosphating. Sixteen 
years ago. Professor Graham pointed out the greater ad- 
vantage to agriculture of the cheap carbonic acid method 
of superphosphating than of the dear sulphuric acid 
method; first, because it was vastly cheaper, and secondly, 
because it did not give rise to the production of insoluble 
phosphates. 

Ground phosphate requires to be used in much larger 
quantities than dissolved phosphate, if it is to produce 
equal results. As a top-dressing on grass land, however, 
it should only be applied in showery weather, so that the 
rains may wash it into the soil. For barley and turnips 
it is harrowed in or mixed with the soil; and there also 
it is more effective in a moist season than in a dry one; 
and its efficacy is in all cases greatly enhanced by com- 
posting it with the substances mentioned above before 
applying it to the land. 

Xitrate of Soda and Sulphate of Ammonia.— These are 
the two chief nitrogenous manures in the market, and 



90 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

at present prices the nitrate is the cheaper fertilizer of 
the two, 

"The commercial value of these two substances is 
based entirely upon the amount of nitrogen which they 
contain. Having said this, I by no means wish to be un- 
derstood/' says Sir J. B. Lawes, " that the action of the 
two substances is the same. Both supply the plant with 
nitric acid, but with the sulphate of ammonia, the forma- 
tion of nitrate of lime is attended with the formation of 
sulphate of lime, and with a considerable removal of the 
soluble sulphate of lime in the soil. Where nitrate of 
soda is used, an alkali is liberated, which has a decom- 
posing action upon the minerals of the soil. In cases 
where sufficient potash is not available, large amounts of 
soda are also taken up by plants when manured with 
nitrate of soda. We have found soda very largely in pas- 
ture sugar beets and mangels, but not in potatoes. 

''^For some reason which I am unable to exj^lain, the 
application of nitrate to leguminous plants is more favor- 
able to their growth than the application of salts of 
ammonia. The herbage of a permanent pasture, where 
nitrate of soda alone, in one case, and with the addition 
of minerals in another, is applied every year, is of a 
totally distinct character from the herbage where salts of 
ammonia are applied alone, in one case, and with miner- 
als in another. I think, too, we have evidence to show 
that the organic matter in the soil is reduced more 
rapidly by nitrate than by ammonia." 

Of the two manures, nitrate of soda answers best in a 
dry season, and sulphate of ammonia in a wet one. They 
can only be economically applied to land with a groAving 
crop ready to seize on them. It is therefore never ad- 
visable, even in a dry spring, to sow these soluble manures 
as early as the seed. Grain crops should be well above 
ground, and root crops should be at least thinned and set 
out, before either ammonia salts or nitrates are applied. 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTION^AL MAITURES. 91 

On wheat or grass land one liundrcd pounds of sulphate 
of ammonia or one hundred and fifty pounds of nitrate 
of soda, per acre, may be used as a top-dressing after 
early spring growth has commenced; and half as much 
as a supplementary dressing at a later period, if required. 
The same quantities will often be bestowed with profit 
on the root and green crops, giving the first dressing 
about a month after sowing and the second at the time of 
the last hoeing. 

Potash Salts* — These are most efficacious on grass 
land, if well drained, and on light sandy soils. Grasses, 
potatoes and turnips are particularly benefited by ma- 
nures of this class. The chief source of supply is kainit. 
Potash salts in kainit require to be applied to the soil in 
autumn, giving them time to dissolve in the soil. From 
one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds of muriate 
of potash, or from six to eight hundred pounds of kainit, 
per acre, are ap]3lied in conjunction with other manures. 

Gypsum, or sulphate of lime, is extensively employed 
as a fertilizer. It enters into the composition of clover, 
grasses, turnips, and potatoes, but a special application 
of gypsum to the soil has little effect in our system of 
farming. It is abundantly supplied to crops, in the 
common course of culture, in the farm dung and in 
superphosphate or dissolved bones and other artificial 
manures. 

The value of gypsum as a fertilizer is believed to be 
partly due to its action in fixing volatile and escaping 
carbonates of ammonia, and conveying them to the roots 
of plants. When carbonate of ammonia comes in contact 
with sulphate of lime, double decomposition takes place, 
carbonate of lime and sulphate of ammonia being formed. 
Powdered gypsum may thus be used in stables as a fixer 
of ammonia. It requires to be m a fine state of mechan- 
ical trituration before it is applied to the soil. 



92 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

Common Salt is an ingredient of crops, but most soils 
supply it in abundance for the wants of the plant. Its 
application is only likely to be useful as a source of plant 
food in growing such crops as mangels, onions, cabbages, 
etc., which contain a considerable percentage of chloride 
of sodumi in their ash. It is necessary only on soils 
naturally deficient in salt, and situated so far inland as to 
be beyond the influences of the salt-laden sea-breezes. 

On grass lands salt is best used as a compost with 
vegetable matter; and in that form it may be given at 
the rate of from three hundred to five hundred pounds 
per acre. On arable land it is also best given as a com- 
post. If used alone, however, the application should not 
exceed three hundred to five hundred pounds per acre, 
and it should be well harrowed in. 

The destructive action of salt in excess on vegetation 
is turned to account sometimes in destroying weeds on 
garden paths, etc. It can also be taken advantage of at 
times as a corrective to -the over-stimulating effects of 
nitrate of soda and other manures on wheat crops. When 
these are running too much to straw an application of 
salt may check this tendency and prevent lodging. 

Soot contains a small percentage of nitrogen. Used 
alone it makes an excellent top-dressing for spring wheat 
and grass; being quick in its action without being too 
stimulating. It has also the property of destroying slugs 
on winter wheat; and it keeps off other pests. 

Vegctable-ashcs. — Kelp, the burnt ash of sea-weed, 
contains a large quantity of potash. It takes twenty- 
four tons of sea- weed to produce one ton of kelp. 

Wood-ashes are rich in potash, and constitute a valu- 
able manure for potatoes and turnips. Tliey are used to 
the best advantage when mixed with superphosphate 
and other manures. 



AUXILIARY AKD EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 93 

Cotton-cake-dust, and Malt-dust. — The value of these 
substances is chiefly dependent on the large quantity of 
nitrogen which they contain. 

Cotton-cake-dust has recently been tried with extra- 
ordinary effect on poor cotton lands. This could not be 
due altogether to the connection which existed between 
the chemical properties of the manure and those of the 
crop. Their value as feeding-stuffs hinders their use as 
manures. 

Fish refuse contains nearly two per cent, of nitrogen, 
and one per cent, of phosphoric acid. It answers well as 
a manure for both wheat and root crops when made into a 
compost with its own weight of soil, and allowed to de- 
compose before being applied. Fish guano is a manu- 
facture of the refuse from oil-pressing and fish-curing es- 
tablishments by pressure and treatment with sulphuric 
acid. 

Bullock's Blood is used on a large scale as a manure, 
but chietly for mixing with other fertilizers. In its 
natural state blood contains about three per cent, of 
nitrogen; when dried it contains twelve per cent. It 
makes an excellent manure for turnips when mixed witli 
bone-dust or phosphatic guano; and, mixed Avith peat or 
mould, may be very advantageously applied as a top- 
dressing to wheat crops and to grass land. 

Sea-weed is largely used as a manure on some parts 
of the coast. It is especially suited for the potato crop, 
which reriuires much potash— a large mineral constituent 
of sea- weed. Sometimes it is used as a top-dressing to 
grass land. The action of sea-weed is the same as a green 
crop plowed in. It contains all the ordinary constituents 
of land plants. As it putrifies rapidly, it forms a quick 
manure. It is applied at the rate of twenty to thirty 



94 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

tons per acre. The usual practice is to spread it on the 
soil and plow it in ; but it is occasionally formed into a 
compost with earth and dung. The neighborhood of the 
coast is in some districts a distinct element in the value 
of the land, on account of the sea- weed as a manure, 
which is thus more cheaply obtained. 

Sewage as a Manure. — The difficulty in the way of its 

use is its enormous bulk in proportion to its valuable 
constituents. A ton of city sewage ordinarily contains 
only three pounds of solid matter — viz., one pound of 
organic and two pounds of mineral constituents, the 
former yielding less than three ounces of ammonia, and 
the latter half an ounce of phosphoric acid and one and a 
half ounces of potash ; so that in a ton or sewage there is 
only about five ounces of fertilizing matter. One ton of 
guano may thus contain as much of the food of plants as 
twelve hundred tons of sewage. According to the mar- 
ket price of the former the theoretical value of the sewage 
ought thus to be about five cents per ton. Practically, 
however, there is no comparison between the values of the 
two manures ; because it is found that ten or even twenty 
times the theoretic equivalent of sewage is required to 
produce the effect of guauo ; and considering the far 
greater cost of utilizing the sewage, only a nominal price 
can be put upon it. 

There are several methods of utilizing sewage : — 
Irrigation is the method which has been most largely 
practised. It consists in distributing the sewage over the 
surface of well-drained fields, from reservoirs into which 
the sewers empty, or into which their contents are 
pumped. 

In the dry-earth system the sewage nuisance is dealt 
Avith house by house. Dry pulverized earth in movable 
boxes in privies is made the receptacle in which excreta 
are covered and rendered harmless, being still serviceable 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIONAL MANURES. 95 

for gardens and fields. The system, lit enough for insti- 
tutions where discipline prevails, is hardly applicable to 
large towns, where it would entail the bringing in dry 
earth to the amount of from five to ten pounds for each 
individual daily. 

The Liquid Manure of the Farm is the drainings or 
the washings from the farm-yard manure. The best use 
that can be made of it probably is to return it to the dung 
heap, where means should be devised for its absorption or 
retention. If allowed to flow away from the cattle sheds 
or from the manure pile, it should be collected m tanks. 
From the collecting tanks it may be distributed over the 
land by a watering-cart, when the area is small. On a 
larger scale, pipes are laid underground in the field, and 
the manure distributed either by gravitation or by pump- 
ing. The gravitation system is the only practicable one 
on the score of expense. Liquid manure is chiefly valu- 
able for the rapidity with which it produces its effect. It 
is well adapted to light sandy soils, but a failure on heavy 
clays. It is also more suitable for grass and root crops 
than for grain crops. By its use grass may be cut six or 
eight times in the course of a year. 

Application of Manures.— The tendency of modern 
practice in manuring is to use readily soluble and quick- 
acting manures, but to use them sparingly at a time. 
Little and often is the rule. 

In applying fertilizers of a soluble character, it is found 
economical to manure the plant rather than the soil. 
The practice is especially applicable to mangels, cab- 
bages, and other drilled crops, where the plants are a con- 
sid'erable distance apart in the rows. The manure is do- 
posited by the drill along the line of each plant row, and 
immediately covered in. Manures which are not so read- 
ily soluble produce the best effect when intimately mixed 



96 THE SOIL OF THE PARM. 

with the soil. The depth to which the manure is turned 
in should be regulated by the nature of the soil and of 
the manure. On a clay soil it may be buried deeper with 
advantage than on a sandy soil ; and a slow manure may 
be buried deeper than a soluble and quick-acting manure. 
It is not, however, good policy to bury any manure very 
deeply. The rain in a drained soil will soon distribute it 
throughout the mass to be fertilized ; but we must not 
forget that the producing power of a soil is governed 
more by the mass of its vegetable bed than by the meas- 
ure of its superficies ; and where the subsoil is unma- 
nured the crop will often be underfed. One of the causes 
of the failure of red clover is traced, we believe, to the 
dying off of the roots when they penetrate beyond the 
depth of available manure. Soluble manures, like nitrate 
of soda and sulphate of ammonia, should be put on the 
surface ; but undissolved phosphate, and even guano, is 
best when just covered with the soil. Stiff clays are im- 
mensely benefited by a good dressing of fresh farm-yard 
manure plowed under to a tolerable depth. 

Top-dressings with artificial manures are chiefly to be 
recommended for crops in the grassy stages of their 
growth — wheat crops in spring, and grass lands at the 
same season, and especially in wet seasons. In such sea- 
sons one objection to this method of applying manure to 
wheat is the tendency which it produces in the crop to 
lodge. Salt will partly counteract this effect, and it does 
so by strengthening and to some extent shortening the 
straw ; but this is to counteract one of the principal ob- 
jects of top-dressmg. On clay soils, which produce strong 
straw, the tendency to lodge is less than on lighter soils. 
In dry seasons, on the other hand, top-dressings of artifi- 
cial manures are often inefficient, and the drier the cli- 
mate the less likely are they to answer. But there are 
doubtless circumstances Avhen top-dressing may be profit- 
able in any season — as on poor soils, and where the ma- 



AUXILIARY AND EXCEPTIOKAL MANURES. 97 

nure is applied for the first time on newly reclaimed land. 
A top-dressing of farm-yard manure always produces a 
good effect. In a wet season it is washed into the soil. 
In a dry one it is often very efficacious as a mulch on 
grass and arable land, too, if, as is sometimes done, it be 
applied to the latter immediately after the crop is put in, 
and before the plants come up. 

Artificial manures may be applied either in a dry or 
liquid form, broadcast, or in the drill. The common 
practice for root crops, beans, and peas, at least, is to 
deposit in the drills either by hand or machine; but for 
potatoes, where roots are grown on the ridge, the manure 
is frequently distributed broadcast, previous to forming 
the drills, when it becomes more mixed with the soil. 
There are now manure distributers in use for this purpose; 
and they are equally suitable for applying top-dressings of 
liglit manures. 

Great advantage has attended the use of the water- 
drill for sowing turnip and mangel seed in dry seasons. 
By applying the manure in a liquid state, the germina- 
tion of the seed and the subsequent brairding can gener- 
ally be relied on. In a dry climate, the water-drill is 
desirable in any year, if root crops, which have to be put 
in at the driest and hottest season, are to be successfully 
cultivated. The same quantity of manure is used as in 
the dry state, and the quantity of water is regulated by 
the condition of the land and the dryness of the atmos- 
phere. Superphosphate and guano are the most suitable 
manures for the water-drill. 

The need of providing for the self-maintenance of a 
soil by good management of the home resources is hardly 
of the urgency that it once possessed, now that we have 
helps in auxiliary manures, formerly unknown, at our 
command, but in economical agriculture the question 
will always be important ; and the alternative of main- 
taining fertility by the purchase of auxiliary manures 
5 



98 



THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 



(producing their whole effect almost at once) or by pur- 
chases of food for live stock and the artificial enrichment 
of their manure, will always be one of the most interest- 
ing for the farmer. The latter plan, which now forms 
part of all good farm management, is theoretically much 
the more economical, and practically much the more en- 
during. 

Considering the operations of animal nutrition and 
growth as a mere chemical process, the manure excreted 
has a value which, calculated according to the data sup- 
plied by the manure market, is a very large proportion 
of the original market price of the food. Sir John B. 
Lawes has prepared the following table, giving the value 
which ought to be realized from the manure derived 
from different kinds of food; 



Money value 
Description of of the Manure 

Food. from one ton 

of each food. 

Decorticated cotton seed 

cake $32.50 

Rape cake 24.62 

Linseed cake 23.12 

Common cotton-seed cake 19.62 

Beans 18.50 

Linseed 18.25 

Peas 15.62 

Indian meal 7.75 

Malt dust 21.37 

Bran 14.50 

Oats 8.75 

Wheat 8.25 

Malt 7.75 



Money value 
Description of of the Manure 

Food. from one ton 

of each food. 

Barley $ 7.50 

Clover hay 11.37 

Meadow hay 7.62 

Bean straw 5.12 

Pea straw 4.68 

Oat straw 3.37 

Wheat straw 3.12 

Barley straw 2.68 

Potatoes 1.75 

Parsnips 1.37 

Mangel wurzel 1.31 

Swedish turnips 1.06 

Common turnips 1.00 

Carrots 1.00 



These are the estimated values of the food remnants 
in the several cases named, calculated upon the market 
prices of the several fertilizing ingredients which they 
contain ; and if there were no waste anywhere in the 
management of the manure before it reaches the soil, or 



THE LOSS OF N^ITROGEI^. 99 

in the soil itself before it reaches the plant, these figures 
might be realized. At present, they do but give the 
possible result of an unattainable economy, and they can 
only be kept before us as a goal at which to aim rather 
than as one which we may expect to reach 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE LOSS OF NITROGEN.* 



The Loss of Nitrogen in purchased manures ; The loss of Nitrogen as 
Nitric Acid. 

BY J. B. LAWES, LL.D,, F. R. S. 

On the Loss of Nitrogen in Purchased 3Ianures when 
Applied to Crops • — There is one great advantage that 
writers on the subject of Agriculture in the United States 
possess over the same class in Great Britian; they are 
sure to obtain an impartial hearing. In the United 
States a farmer, on coming across any views, or state- 
ments on the subject of agriculture that are new to him, 
asks himself the question, are these true; and, if so, 
what benefit can I derive from them? In Great Britain, 
from the conflicting interests of the owner of the land, 
and the occupier who pays an annual rent for the right to 
cultivate it, the teachings of science are likely to be 
praised or blamed accordingly as they affect the interests 

* Nitrogen is one of the most important constituents of barn-yard and 
of artificial fertilizers. When purchased it is the most costly element in 
fertilizers, and whatever relates to its loss, and incidentally to its pres- 
ervation, is of great importance to the farmer. In view of this, the ac- 
counts in this chapter of some experiments at Rothamsted, England, 
written for the "American Agriculturist" by Sir J. B. Lawes, will be 
read with special interest. 



100 THE SOIL OF THE FAKM. 

of the owner rather than those of the cultivator of the 
soil. A few years ago, when public attention was directed 
to the vast increase in the amount of agricultural pro- 
duce sent from the States to England, there were many 
who put forward the view that, by a more liberal appli- 
cation of capital to the soil, we could grow all the wheat 
required to feed our population. Under these circum- 
stances I thought it my duty to caution tenant farmers 
against paying too much attention to statements which 
were uttered by those who had no experience in either 
practical or scientific agriculture. I accordingly delivered 
a lecture before a farmer's club, in which I endeavored to 
show, by the teaching of my own experiments, that a 
higher system of farming was not so certain a remedy for 
falling prices as some wished them to believe. 

In a letter recently published in a paper devoted to 
field sports, which I have been informed is much read hj 
the owners of land, a writer who signs himself ^^Agri- 
cola," makes the following observations: ^^ Certain pam- 
phlets of Mr. Lawes have done intolerable mischief in 
giving a false coloring to the service higher farming might 
render in enabling British farmers to tide over the pres- 
ent crisis," and he goes on to say that we have the coun- 
terblasts of M. Georges Ville to send all unsubstantial 
utterances beyond the domain of rational consideration ! 

If in speaking of the immense influence which such nitro- 
genous manures as ammonia, or nitric acid, produce upon 
the growth of our ordinary cereal crops, I had pointed out 
that, owing to the high price of these substances, it was 
by no means certain the increase in produce would pay 
for their application ; and consequently it would be de- 
sirable for the United States farmer to exercise some 
caution in their use. I think it is hardly possible to be- 
lieve, that any one in the States could suppose such a 
caution would be productive of evil. 

In another case I was rather amused at a corresj^on- 



THE LOSS OF NITROGEN". 101 

dence wliich I lately noticed between M. Georges Ville 
and some one who had called his attention to my views 
with regard to the sources of the nitrogen in vegetation, 
which were altogether antagonistic to those entertained 
by M. Yille. M. Ville, in his answer, started, that he had 
heard of the existence of a pamphlet on the subject, but 
that he was so much engaged in showing how foreign 
competition could be best overcome, that he had not 
time to look into it, but that he would do so, in order to 
see whether it would be necessary for him to answer it 
himself, or whether he should leave the task to one of his 
pupils. 

With regard to the subject of nitrogen, the views I am 
disposed to entertain may be briefly summarized as fol- 
lows: — (1) That the soil and not the atmosphere is the 
main source of the nitrogen which we find in our crops. 
(2) That in the application of manures containing ni- 
trogen, more or less loss of that substance is always in- 
curred; and consequently, if the object is to obtain any 
given amount of nitrogen in the produce, the application 
in the form of manure must be largely in excess of the 
amount required. In everything relating to the compe- 
tition between Europe and the United States; between 
the vast stores of untouched fertility of the one, and the 
comparatively exhausted stock of the other, the question 
of nitrogen is one of paramount importance. I am not 
aware myself of any writer, practical or scientific, who 
has accepted as a fact, or even entertained the idea that, 
in the application of nitrogen in purchased manures a 
considerable loss is incurred. This loss in a substance of 
so costly a nature is a matter of great economic import- 
ance. The view generally held, I believe, is that no loss 
takes place, and further, that by a small application of 
nitrogen, a farmer not only recovers in the crop all that 
he has applied in the manure, but a good deal more. 
This, according to M. Yille, is the economic function 



102 THE SOIL OF THE EARM. 

of our root crops, wMch, when well supplied with min- 
erals, and a small amount of ammonia, get what more 
they require of this element from the atmosphere. The 
following are the views of this writer with regard to a ro- 
tation: ^^That some crops demand all the nitrogen they 
require to he supplied to them; others require a small 
amount, which enables them to obtain a good deal in ad- 
dition from the atmosphere; while others again can ob- 
tain the whole of the nitrogen they need from the atmos- 
phere." This explanation appears so simple and clear 
that it seems quite a 'pitj to say anything that could 
throw a doubt upon its accuracy. 

I will now endeavor to show what loss of the nitrogen 
in the manure has taken place in our own experiments on 
the growth of potatoes at Kothamsted. In order to 
measure the effect of nitrogen, and also ascertain 
whether any, and if so what amount of loss has taken 
place, our plan has been to grow the crop continuously, 
with mineral manures alone. We consider that by this 
means the crop avails itself of all the-sources of nitrogen 
at its disposal, whether they be derived from the soil or 
the atmosphere. When, in addition to the same min- 
erals, nitrogen in some soluble form is applied to the po- 
tatoes in another experiment, we consider that the increase 
in the crop over that grown by minerals alone, is 
due to the nitrogen of the manure; and further, if we 
deduct the amount of nitrogen in the crop grown by 
minerals alone, from the amount contained in the crop 
grown by minerals and nitrogen, the residue, when com- 
pared with the amount of nitrogen applied in the manure, 
will give us the measure of the loss. I must observe, how- 
ever, that this experiment requires to be continued for a 
good many years before any safe conclusions can be 
drawn; first, because of the great influence of favorable 
or unfavorable seasons; and, secondly, because it is only 
by the aid of time that we can ascertain whether the 



THE LOSS OF NITROGEK. 103 

nitrogen applied, but not recovered in one crop, is 
available for those which succeed. The more favorable 
is the season for the growth of a crop, the better 
will the crop be able to avail itself of the stores 
of manure furnished by the soil and atmosphere. At 
Eothamsted, the season of 1881 was very favorable for 
the growth of potatoes; I therefore select that year's 
crop, not as indicating what might be the average loss of 
nitrogen applied m manure, but to show how very 
serious may be the loss, even under exceptionally favora- 
ble conditions. The following table gives the number of 
bushels of potatoes of fifty pounds each: 

TABLE. 

Bicshels per Acre. 

(1) Potash, soda, magnesia, superphosphate 265 

(3) The same as (1) with 400 ll)s. salts of ammouia 484 

Gain by addition of ammonia 219 

It is quite evident that the mineral manures enabled 
the potatoes to gather up a large amount of nitrogen; 
and that further growth was only arrested for want of 
more nitrogen, is evident by the much larger crop grown 
when a manure containing that substance was used; this 
fact is still further confirmed by the analyses of the pota- 
toes grown by mineral manures alone, which show a very 
low percentage of nitrogen. Assuming that the ordi- 
nary potatoes in a dry state contain one per cent, of 
nitrogen, these potatoes contained one-sixth less than 
that amount, and it is probable that under such condi- 
tions no further growth was possible. 

We now come to the loss of nitrogen. The four hun- 
dred pounds of sulpliate and muriate of ammonia are 
estimated to furnish about eighty-five pounds of nitro- 
gen. Taking the potatoes grown by mineral manures 
alone at twenty-six pounds, we find in those grown by 
ammonia and minerals sixty-six pounds, or an increase 
of forty pounds; but as we supplied eighty-five pounds 



104 THE SOIL OF THE FAEM. 

in the manure, we have recovered something less than 
fifty per cent, of the amount supplied, and this, too, 
under the influence of an unusually favorable season! 
Taking an average of seasons, it would be much nearer 
the truth to say that not more than one- third of 
the nitrogen supplied is recovered in the crop. Pota- 
toes contain twenty-five per cent, of dry matter in 
every one hundred pounds ; if we take a bushel to weigh 
fifty pounds, eight bushels will weigh four hundred 
pounds; which amount is equivalent to one hundred 
pounds of dry matter, and will contain one pound of 
nitrogen. 

To obtain this one pound of nitrogen in the produce, 
we find it necessary to apply three pounds in the manure, 
and as the nitrogen costs about twenty-five cents per 
pound, this large difference between the amount supplied 
and that recovered becomes a very serious consideration. 

I might further observe that as our experiments are 
conducted with more care and attention than could pos- 
sibly be given to crops grown under the ordinary opera- 
tions of agriculture, I do not think it would be safe to 
reckon on a smaller loss than that which we have incurred, 
and the probability is that it might be much larger. 

The general conclusion to be drawn from these experi- 
ments, as well as from those upon root crops in general, 
such as turnips, mangels, and sugar beets, is that they do 
not obtain theirhitrogen from the atmosphere; and that, 
when supplied with that substance, the amount recovered 
in the crop is very much less than that supplied in the 
manure. 

The Loss of Mtroi^en as Mine Acid.— In one of the 

arable fields at Eothamsted we placed, ten years ago, 
three gauges, each having an area of one one-thousandth 
of an acre, at the various depths of twenty, forty, and 
sixty inches below the surface. The operation was per- 



THE LOSS or KITROGEIS". 105 

formed without any disturbance of the soil, and no veg- 
etation is allowed to grow upon the area occupied by the 
drain gauges themselves. Close to them is a rain 
gauge of a similar size. We obtain by this arrangement 
a knowledge of the rain-fall, and also of the amount of 
rain water which passes through the soil at different 
depths. From time to time analyses have been made of 
the water passing through the soil, and latterly the 
whole of the nitric acid and chlorine which the water 
contained has been determined. The results are in 
course of publication. I do not propose, therefore, on 
the present occasion, to do more than point out the im- 
portant bearing these investigations have upon practical 
agriculture. 

The whole history of nitric acid, as regards its bearing 
upon vegetation, is of quite recent date. The •time is 
within my own recollection when it was a question of 
doubt whether the effect of nitrate of soda on veofctatioii 
was due to the nitrogen or the soda. At the present 
time it may be said that every farmer has an interest in 
nitric acid, and that a correct knowledge of its properties 
and action, with relation to our soil and crops, must be 
the basis of all agricultural science. 

The amount of nitrogen which passes through the 
Rothamsted drain gauges every year since they were 
established, if calculated upon an acre of land, would ex- 
ceed forty pounds in weight. I have made an estimate 
of the nitrogen contained in crops grown in the United 
States, taking as my basis the average produce over the 
whole country for ten years, and the amount removed 
per acre would be very much less than this. Upon ordi- 
nary arable land, therefore, which is not particularly fer- 
tile, and has remained uncropped and at rest, more nitro- 
gen passes each year through the soil than we should find 
in an ordinary crop of grain, potatoes, or hay, grown in 
the States. Let us add to this fact three others. (1.) 



106 THE SOIL OF THE FARM. 

That the water passing through these gauges is much 
richer in nitrogen than the rain which falls upon them. 
(2.) That it is richer in nitrogen in the autumn than at 
any other time of the year. (3.) That the drainage 
water collected in another field, where a crop of wheat 
was in luxurious growth, contained no nitric acid at all, 
and we have before us a basis from which some very im- 
portant conclusions can be drawn. 

We learn that the most important ingredient of the 
food of all plants, as also the most expensive when used 
artificially, is continually produced in our soils, is con- 
tinually moving about, continually being taken up by 
vegetation, and continually being washed away and lost. 
Such being the case, it follows as a necessary consequence 
that the amount of nitrogen that analysis has proved to 
be contained in our crops is not a correct measure of the 
exhaustion of this substance, but we must add to it the 
amount of nitric acid which is lost from the crop being 
unable to take it up from one cause or another. I will 
endeavor to explain my meaning by an illustration taken 
from an ordinary operation in farming. A farmer sows 
two fields, one with wheat only, one with wheat and 
timothy, clover, rye-grass, or an assortment of these 
plants. The wheat is sown before the seeds, and takes 
the largest share of the light and food; soon after bloom- 
ing the wheat ceases to gather food from tlie soil, and in 
the early summer, the crop being ripe, is carried away. 
The seeds are thus relieved from a powerful antagonist, 
and, having complete possession of the soil, continue to 
grow both above and below it until they are stopped by 
frost; even then it is probable that the roots, which are 
beneath the region of frost, grow and collect food. 

Assuming the wheat field not sown with grass to be 
without weeds at the time of harvest, and afterwards (a 
very improbable assumption, I admit,) it would resemble 
the soil of my drain gauges, and be subject to the same 



THE LOSS OF NITROGEI^". 107 

losses from the washing out of the nitric acid by the 
winter rains. A high temperature is favorable to the 
production of nitric acid in our soil, and the collecting 
power of the wheat has ceased before the highest tem- 
perature of the summer has been reached. We may 
make an imaginary sum of the result as follows : 

Lbs. of nitrogen washed away per acre. 

From soil without vegetation 40 

From soil with wheat, 15 lbs. retained by crop 25 

From soil with wheat and seeds— retained by wheat, 15 lbs.; by seeds, 
25 lbs 5 

Green vegetation is tlie great agent by which nitric 
acid is converted into insoluble forms; it is evident, 
therefore, that before we can assign to any of our crops 
their proper economic function in a rotation, we must 
take into account both the length of time to which the 
period of their growth extends, and also the range and 
depth of their roots. The tendency of the Kothamsted 
experiments is every year leading us more and more to 
the conclusion, that the source of nitrogen in our crops 
is to be found in the amount of that substance stored up 
in our soils. If further investigation should establish 
this to be absolutely true, the current ideas with regard 
to the properties of several of our crops will require con- 
siderable modification. 



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